The Conference Committee on House Bill 1012 voted unanimously to accept the Senate’s position to remove direct state hospital construction funding and to eliminate a steering committee provision from HB1012.

Committee Chairman Nelson called the roll and Representative O'Brien moved that the committee “accept the senate's position to reduce the state hospital funding where that would be at 0 and then remove section 21 which is the steering committee.” The motion was seconded by Senator Davidson and passed 6-0 with votes recorded from Chairman Nelson, Representative O’Brien, Representative Mitscog, Chairman Dever, Senator Cleary and Senator Davidson.

Representative O’Brien told the committee the state hospital item has been moved to House Bill 1015, the Office of Management and Budget bill, and summarized the Senate proposal: “it's a $200,000,000 appropriation from SIF, a hundred million dollar line of bridal. And then it would remove the steering committee, which would go underneath the office of management and budget.” He added the OMB would oversee construction administration and that the steering committee language would be included in HB1015 under OMB oversight, with seats for the Department of Health and Human Services, OMB, the governor’s office and legislative appointees from both chambers.

Representative O’Brien said the House’s original position had been larger: “the HR position on the state hospital it was $300,000,000,” but described the current approach as intended to get construction started this summer and to provide oversight through the OMB-established steering committee in the other bill.

The committee did not adopt any amendment that kept funding or the steering committee language in HB1012; the formal action removes those items from HB1012 and moves them to HB1015 as described.

The committee proceeded to other budget items after the vote and did not take further action on the state hospital language in this meeting.