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Joint Budget Committee

Thursday, February 19, 2026·3h 55m·▶ Watch / Listen

The JBC completed figure setting for the Department of Agriculture — zeroing out the agrivoltaics grant program 5-1 and cutting climate resilience and equine welfare grants — then turned to a sprawling school finance sustainability discussion in which staff warned that implementing the current-law formula will be unsustainable and that the state's reserve goes negative by FY30 under a stress test.

Key Actions

·Dept. of Agriculture – R1 Personnel Cost RealignmentPassed

+ 13 more actions

Controversies

Categorical funding prioritization — gifted and talented vs. expelled and at-risk students

Senator [Mobley — UNCLEAR SPELLING] questioned why the committee would add money to special ed programs for gifted and talented students while recommending zero increases for expelled and at-risk student services, asking 'if we have a hierarchy of needs, what's at the top?' Ms. Yule responded that the dollar amounts differ and that the expelled/at-risk and comprehensive health programs are much closer to being fully funded at 94% and 76% of statutory maximum respectively.

+ 1 more controversy

Notable Quotes

“When I plugged in the current law general fund increases into that model, with that and with current economic outlook and the budget request slash proposals and recommendations, taking all that into account, the current law scenario, in the stress test, the state's reserve goes to negative by fiscal year 30.”

Ms. Yule (JBC Staff) — Ms. Yule was presenting the results of a stress test on the state budget using Director Harper's model, explaining why she concluded implementing the school finance formula per current law is not sustainable.

+ 3 more quotes

Votes

Zero out the agrivoltaics grant program (R2) rather than approve roll forward authorityPassed
No (1)Vice Chair Jeff Bridges
Staff Initiated 1 — offset general fund with AMF, $457,000 ongoing plus difference up to $780,000 as one-timePassed
R1BA1 state share total program (school finance formula figure setting, $50 million general fund increase)Passed
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TranscriptPreview
The joint budget committee will come to order. Congratulations and well done, Senators. Thank you. We are now. Thank God for the consent calendar. Just gonna say I'm jealous. So much better. Vice chair Bridges. Thank you, madam Chair. Just because we're talking about it and we gaveled in already, so might as well say it on the mic. The. The consent calendar is a blessing. And I think it was more than half of the departments. It was. We only did like six bills. So there were like two pages of bills that were on consent calendar and like six that weren't. We only did public safety, corrections, department of natural resources, which were nothing burger but health department and Dora. So the only reason we did Dora was because one of our people just loathedora. He just hates him. Otherwise it would have been uncomfortable. The B and R was like five seconds. We just talked about good things. Well. Well, yeah. You did it faster than we did. Corrections could have gone quicker. All right, we have Mr. Rickman here today to present figure setting for the department of agriculture. Take it away, Mr. Rickman. Thank you,…
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