House Bill 1629 would allow a political subdivision, at its discretion, to adopt a biennial budget rather than an annual budget. If I’m reading it correctly, the subdivision could simply adopt an annual budget, it could adopt a biennial budget and make no changes the second year, or it could adopt a biennial budget and, if there was a need, revise the second year’s budget. If it made a biennial budget and stuck with it, citizen’s ability to challenge and review by the state board of accounts would be limited.
This bill is the second one in which I’ve seen this language:
The legislative services agency shall prepare legislation for introduction in the 2006 regular session of the general assembly to organize and correct statutes affected by this act.
When I worked at LSA, I don’t recall this kind of thing being permitted. Maybe it’s just translation for “this bill is a dog that won’t pass and we shouldn’t waste the paper going through all the code sections affected if it’s just going to die.” But, this bill just passed the House 95-0. A lot of times, amending the small technical stuff reveals larger problems with the concept. I don’t think it should be put off until after the legislature has already committed to the concept. You read the fine print before you sign.
Leave a Reply