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Committee approves package of temporary appropriations, federal grant reconciliations and contracts
Summary
A legislative committee approved bundled temporary appropriations, reconciled several federal grants and reviewed scores of contracts and transfers; members pressed agencies on oversight for broadband funds and insurance reimbursements for college storm damage.
The legislative committee reviewed and approved a package of temporary appropriations, federal grant reconciliations and multiple contract items during a meeting that covered Sections B through K of the packet.
Billy Parish, staff with the Bureau of Legislative Research, summarized several action items that the committee approved. He described B1 as "a letter from the Court of Appeals" requesting $30,000 "to award fees to attorneys appointed for indigent appellants in criminal appeals" and said B2 was a $5,000,000 request from the Department of Commerce’s Division of Aeronautics "to distribute grants to airports and entities that develop, promote, and educate aeronautics and aviation." Parish also detailed a $1,000,000 appropriation to pay catastrophic workers' compensation claims and a $2,500,000 request to refund overpayments of estimated quarterly premium taxes tied to a new rehabilitation tax credit program.
The committee adopted the B items by voice vote after the chair called for a motion. Members likewise approved a set of ARPA reconciliation requests from the Department of Human Services that return unused federal funds to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and they adopted five Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) items including a $176,000,000 second-tranche award supporting the BEAD broadband deployment program.
Other approvals and reviews included cash-fund requests for college repairs, corrections commissary invoices, emergency management 911 subgrants, as well as discretionary federal grants and method-of-finance updates for several state universities. Contract packets across ratifications, construction, intergovernmental, out-of-state and in-state contracts were reviewed; one ratification related to nuclear planning and response services was noted at $65,000.
Where the record included votes, the committee recorded voice approvals for the grouped action items. Several items were reviewed "without objection," meaning they stood for review rather than formal recorded roll-call votes. Two reports were filed for committee information and the meeting adjourned.
The committee (official name not specified in the transcript) completed the packet and set follow-ups where members requested additional documentation or re-review of specific grants.
