Committee action, May 8: SB 474

DID YOU KNOW?
After taking the morning off for Democrats to raise campaign bucks, Senate committees began meeting in the afternoon. SB 474 would bring some sanity to the capital outlay budgeting process. Sen. Robert Adley’s bill would take the five existing priority categories involved currently in ranking projects, which basically are meaningless, and make them into two. This would mirror the reality of the present situation, where placement in either of two categories means immediate of likely future funding, while placement in any of the other three mean these projects unlikely will receive funding any time soon, if at all.

Naturally, the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee began to offer alternatives. One suggestion was to create three categories, to distinguish among money for planning and preliminaries, actual spending, and future spending. Another was that the whole matter ought to be studied some more. Finally, Adley responded by arguing any action was better that keeping the current system.

That seemed to satisfy everybody, who unanimously approved favorable adoption as it is.

TUESDAY: HB 385 is scheduled to be heard by the House Commerce Committee; SB 645 is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Judiciary A Committee; HB 760 is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Judiciary C Committee.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Sen. Adley, do you see the kinds of bills you need to handle?
Senate President Don Hines, when a bill he was introducing sailed right through the committee without any comment, after Adley’s extended efforts regarding SB 474.