WEEK SIX LEGISLATIVE REPORTS

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.