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Spotlight on Spending Bills
This week is all about bricks and mortar and dollars and cents as the Appropriations Committee tackles an agenda packed with the regular session’s most important money bills.
The committee gaveled in at 9 a.m. this morning to give attention to capital outlay, the MFP, supplemental spending and the operating budget, to name a few of the 11 agenda items.
Looking for policy action? Tune into the meeting. Tucked into HB 1, for example, are proposed raises for most department secretaries.
But don’t get in a rush. The main money bills are typically approved during the session’s closing moments, though CC24 supporters no doubt hope to see faster movement this year to clear space for a possible convention.
Before it reached the Appropriations Committee, the multiyear construction bill by Ways and Means Chair Julie Emerson took on 80 amendments Monday and advanced without objection. “This is a short, simple bill,” Emerson joked about the 131-page instrument.
The $10.3 billion bill reflects $543 in bonding capacity for the current year. Emerson said the bill exceeds capacity for the year by a “slight amount.”
It’s not unusual to be over capacity, she said, adding, “It eventually works itself out.”
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