The Joint Appropriations Committee spent its March 22 session reviewing gubernatorial vetoes to the 2024 budget bill and focused first on a veto to Section 307, a long-standing statutory limitation on agency transfers between certain appropriation series.

"Section 307 has been in, the budget for several decades in 1 form or another," said Mr. Richards, a committee staff member, urging the group to start with the provision because restoring it would permit seven conforming amendments elsewhere in the bill.

Section 307, as described by Richards, limits movement of nonfederal appropriations from the "100 series" to other series and from the "900 series" to the "100 series," preventing agencies from using funds appropriated for contracts or other nonpersonnel purposes to increase personnel spending. Richards noted some agencies are listed in footnote subsections as exempt; he and others referred to the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Health and the Department of Corrections as "Superflex" agencies that are not subject to the limitation.

Kevin Hibbert, director of the State Budget Department, told the committee the governor had issued an executive order this summer that produces a similar effect to Section 307 and that the budget office has reviewed requests under that order. Hibbert said the magnitude of approvals under that executive-order process was on the order of $1,000,000 in one instance and that the department expects agencies to pursue the standard appropriation process for longer-term adjustments.

"That's just not gonna happen," Hibbert said when describing the department's approach to redirecting vacancy savings into other expenditure categories, adding the office has a record of enforcing limits and anticipated $60,000,000 in reversions the year before.

Committee members pressed for further detail about the single exception that had been allowed under the executive-order process. Richards and Hibbert said they could provide specifics in a sidebar or executive-session discussion to avoid identifying the individual or position involved in the personnel action. The committee chair then asked whether members wished to move into executive session; the committee agreed and moved to executive session to discuss the exception.

No formal vote to override the veto was recorded during the public session. Committee staff suggested that if the committee chose to restore Section 307 it could make conforming changes to related footnotes in other agency sections.