Joint Budget Committee

Friday, March 27, 2026·3h 19m·▶ Watch / Listen

In a marathon budget-balancing session, the Joint Budget Committee cleared a stack of fund-transfer bills to shore up the general fund while wrestling over which programs to spare — reviving a STEM accelerator grant it had planned to repeal, pausing a school-meals transfer, and repeatedly circling the state's troubled public-private partnership office. Several of the thorniest questions — the P3 property bill, an extra RAE cut, and a Land Board revenue redirect — were held for Monday.

Key Actions

·Social studies assessment billAction

+ 21 more actions

Notable Quotes

“No, I want to keep the shell. I asked for a pause, not a repeal. And that would be repealing what we asked for.”
Julie McCluskie (Committee Chair) · witness — McCluskie draws a firm line against making the school-meals transfer discretionary, insisting the intent is a two-year pause the committee can revisit — not an end to the transfer.

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TranscriptPreview

I think instead of starting on some of these comebacks listed or outstanding items, we're going to jump to some bill drafts that we have not yet approved. Director Harper just passed out a packet with three bills highlighted that we haven't yet taken up. And then Ms. Bickle passed out another. And then there was another that you should have from Director Harper on the consumer price index calculation, which he passed out yesterday. So hopefully all those are in front of you. All right. Ms. Bickel, we. Well, there is a question. We had the two options regarding the social studies assessment. Vice Chair Bridges, have you determined a preference for introduction? No. Oh, my God. Actually, yeah. Okay. I wish you had shared that. Next, the Academic Accelerator Grant program. We currently have a bill draft that ends the this time limited grant program one year early. And we are currently reflecting an $8 million savings from that. Okay. We're just going in a random order, not at random. There's only three bill drafts that we haven't taken up. They're the ones that are highlighted. So we haven't done social studies and we haven't done the Academic…

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