Lawmakers on the House Appropriations & Finance Committee on an informational hearing reviewed competing reauthorization and new funding recommendations for the Section 7 Computer System Enhancement Fund, which pays multi‑year information technology projects that require release from the Department of Information Technology’s Computer System Enhancement Fund certification process.

LFC analyst Emily Hilla told members the LFC recommendation totals about $100,000,000 across all revenues and prioritizes closing out outstanding projects before funding new ones; the executive recommendation totaled roughly $195,200,000 across revenue sources and included more new projects and larger general‑fund components.

Key differences and examples
- Health Care Authority MMIS and Child Support projects: LFC did not support new funding/reauthorization for the HCA child support enforcement replacement project; the executive included major funding. HCA projects have federal matches; members emphasized constituent impacts. Emily Hilla said the child support project “is one of the drivers and the differences between the two budget recommendations.”
- Taxation and Revenue Department (TRD): Executive included full funding for TRD legacy tax return/imaging replacement (GenTax/Gen KFI) requests (for example, $5,600,000 for legacy tax return imaging replacement); LFC recommended phasing and did not include those amounts.
- Secretary of State: both recommendations differ on the e‑file and election management tools; LFC recommended more conservative funding for an elections management tracking tool to support analysis of election costs.
- Office of the State Engineer (OSE): executive proposed more funding for real‑time water measurement modernization; LFC proposed a smaller amount, citing other open OSE projects.
- Gaming Control Board and other agencies: LFC withheld new funding where significant unspent balances remain; for example, Gaming Control Board had a roughly $1,500,000 unspent balance and LFC recommended no new Section 7 money while executive proposed $1,000,000.

Members’ concerns
Members repeatedly asked for encumbrance and expenditure detail before reauthorizing projects that have long open balances. Representative Pettigrew refused to support an immediate yes vote on reauthorizations without more detail, saying he would vote no “because I don't know the details.” Ranking Member Chatfield and others urged a focused working group to examine why so many projects show high unexpended balances and to prioritize projects that can be completed with full funding. Analysts and DFA staff said encumbrance information is recorded in SHARE and LFC/DFA will provide breakdowns of expenditures vs. encumbrances in the working group.

Process and next steps
The committee declined to adopt an executive package at the hearing. Members asked LFC and DFA to form an IT working group to meet next week to reconcile reauthorizations, encumbrance details and new project phasing. Chair Small signaled a preference to adopt the LFC recommendation as a starting point to preserve flexibility and limit large new recurring general‑fund commitments.

Representative remarks
Representative Silva said she could not support more funding where agencies already have significant unspent balances but voiced support for Taxation & Revenue and Secretary of State projects because they support core operations (tax processing and elections). Representative Brown asked whether federal matches are contingent on state funding and was told federal drawdowns generally require state match approvals but the agencies must certify readiness to receive funds.

Ending
The committee treated the Section 7 materials as informational and scheduled a working group to examine reauthorizations, open balances, and new requests. Analysts committed to provide agency‑level encumbrance and expenditure detail to members before the working group meets.