Conference committee agrees to technical fixes for H.951, moves reinsurance authorization into S.190

Members of the conference committee on H.951 met March 20 to review a Joint Fiscal Office technical letter and make drafting decisions for the budget reconciliation package. The group agreed to adopt renewable energy language, fix primary care provider payment wording to preserve dollar amounts, and move a reinsurance authorization out of the budget and into S.190, the reference‑based pricing bill.

The committee’s staff reader said the technical letter contains many sections tied to other bills and recommended skipping placeholder language that should be resolved in the separate bill context. On primary care payments, a member said the change is intended to be implementable and described it as a one‑time rate increase that would apply to primary care providers, including Federally Qualified Health Centers. Members acknowledged AHS had been notified and that the edited structure would keep the dollar amounts the same.

Committee members discussed a $4,000,000 one‑time increase to the renter rebate added by the Senate Finance Committee. The Joint Fiscal Office indicated the technical letter recommended reducing that increase, and committee members said they would not accept the reduction at this time, noting the final yield bill was still pending.

The technical letter also recommends adding carry‑forward language to align one‑time appropriations for H.938 with that bill, and it proposes contingent‑transaction language to ensure Finance Management executes transactions to the greatest extent possible — including partial funding — if the contingent reserve is insufficient. Staff emphasized these are technical fixes and that several placeholders and policy items (including a newly proposed repeal of the Reach First program) should be revisited in their substantive bill contexts rather than handled in the technical letter.

Other technical corrections flagged by staff include updating retirement system numbers, correcting statutory citations (for example, adding a missing subsection reference), and clarifying the statutory carry‑forward report to include only funds subject to the secretary of administration’s carry‑forward authority or automatic carry‑forward provisions. Staff noted the scale of reporting would not include every single appropriation in the system.

Committee members agreed to the proposed technical edits where appropriate, to remove the E.306 reinsurance authorization from the budget and place it in S.190, and to pause further policy discussions in the technical letter. They requested the updated ethics commission language and other revised drafting to review before finalizing the letter. The committee scheduled follow‑up meetings to finish outstanding items.