This week in appropriations we held bill hearings, but most had action deferred until a later date. Last year this process didn’t quite make sense to me, but now I see what it really takes to make everything come together at the end of the day with all the different spending bills that are introduced. We hear them, so each bill gets a fair hearing, and then defer action until we can get a good grasp of how much money (in one time and on-going) is available for going towards all of these different bills, and how much support for different bills there is in both chambers. This makes for a very “crunch time” feeling week ahead, with all these bills needing to be moved out of our committee very quickly. Another thing that comes up very quickly is the deadline to submit motion sheets. Motion sheets are what we as appropriators use to insert or remove a specific budget item into the appropriations bill. In my first session I was extremely thrown off by the sudden shift from “budget hearings” with agencies to budget setting. I am looking forward to this coming up now with my understanding of the process and what lies ahead these next few weeks in appropriations. A work group that was formed as a result of the 5% cut work group that I was on met this week. We gave agencies a chance to explain changes that have taken place within their agency that account for some of the excess reverted Full Time Employee (FTE) hours. We will be tightening the belt on those numbers and right sizing those budgets this year, as well as federal and other fund spending authority. According to the data it seems these areas have not been right sized across the board for roughly 6-7 years. It is a huge topic to dig into, and I’d love to share more detail with anyone interested since it will be hard to explain in a short newsletter.

Last week I wrote about the sales tax sunset repeal. This week the bill that would have made the 4.2% sales tax rate permanent died in the Senate. Without action next year the state sales tax will increase back to 4.5%. There are a couple different bills that aim to capture that increased revenue from the .3% increase, one proposing to direct that money toward a fund for property tax relief. I am hesitant to throw my support behind that idea, as we will be capturing .3% of one of our largest revenue sources for that cause, which will drive further increases in the sales tax rate in the near future on top of just the .3% if and when the revenue growth fails to keep up with the yearly inflation and expansion needed to meet our obligations. When I say meet our obligations, I mean things such as the federally mandated costs associated with programs like Medicaid, inflationary increase for state employees, and inflationary increases for education. SB205, a constituent bill I introduced to reduce the original registration tax for agricultural spray drones and to redirect the money from that tax from the aeronautics commission to a new fund to support drone aviation education at the tech schools passed out of the Senate overwhelmingly. SB124, the bill that Representative John Sjaarda and I had that will place a 5-year moratorium on cell-cultivated proteins (lab grown meat) passed out of Senate Ag and will be on the floor Monday. SB135, a bill that codifies the responsibility of any data center to shoulder the burden of electrical grid build out that is caused by their request to hook onto the grid and ensures water resources are protected passed out of the Senate. I believe there will be some language tweaks in the House, so we need to keep an eye on that one. SB239, a bill that will allow data centers to receive partial or full sales tax rebates made it out of a Senate committee this week. I stand by what I said last week when I stated I will not support free rides for large corporations. It seems there were quite a few good bills in the House that died this week, but I do not have the bandwidth to get into all of that so hopefully our Representatives have some great updates for you. If there is any topic you would like to discuss, please reach out! If you email, please state you are a District 21 constituent, and I will prioritize getting back to you.

I pray the Lord would bless and keep each of you, -Senator Mykala Voita