April 12, 2022
The legislature is off this week for Easter/Passover break after a long week of committee work to pass omnibus budget bills ahead of last week’s final deadline.
Both House and Senate Jobs Committees were able to pass their respective omnibus budget bills out of committee last week. Both bills now await action from each Chamber’s finance committees (Ways and Means in the House, Finance in the Senate) before going to the full House and Senate Floor’s for final passage. After they are passed off each Floor, a Conference Committee will be named and they will meet to iron out the differences between the two bills.
Typically leaders from the Senate, House, and Governor’s office to negotiate joint budget targets and let Committee Chairs take it from there. Unfortunately, leadership did not agree to joint targets this year and as a result the Senate and House bills are extremely different.
The Senate’s Jobs bill appropriates no additional funding for DEED in the current biennium, but does include policy language extending the time period for MIF and JCF award recipients to meet capital investment, wage, or job creation goals before the grant must be repaid. The House Workforce bill appropriates over $186 million to DEED in fiscal year 2023 (including additional funding for Redevelopment) and also includes additional policy language.
The break week may provide legislative leaders the opportunity to continue negotiations and find a path for a supplemental budget to be passed before the legislature adjourns on May 23rd. While we’re about two-thirds of the way through the legislative calendar, there is still much work to be done when lawmakers return on April 19th.