(Oct. 23, 2024) – This week, the Legislative Coordinating Council met to discuss and approve the creation of a 23-member committee that will have five days of meeting between the Nov. 5th elections and before the start of the legislative session in January 2025 to develop a legislative budget based on what agencies request to the Governor.

The committee will consist of eight House Republicans, eight Senate Republicans, four House Democrats and three Senate Democrats. Legislative leadership is likely to appoint the committee members in the coming weeks.

The committee holds meetings and invites agencies to appear to highlight their budget submissions to the governor's office. The committee hopes to develop a legislative budget submission to compare to the governor's budget recommendation, which is historically presented to the legislative budget committees immediately following the State of the State Address.

The legislative leadership highlighted the process to speed up the committee review process of each agency budget and allow the legislative committees more time to dive deeper into the budgets before them. Some members of the Legislative Coordinating Council suggested this may create additional staffing needs and expressed hesitation at changing a process that could be corrected by holding more committee meetings during the regular session.