Committee adopts technical amendments to policy bill, lays over companion House measure and forwards Senate file

The Ways and Means Committee adopted the A15 amendment to House File 7.29 and temporarily laid HF 7.29 over. Committee members then accepted a motion to amend Senate File 476 by replacing everything after the enacting clause with the amended HF 7.29 language and forwarded SF 476 to the General Register by voice vote.

A15 was described by sponsors as a technical amendment that included personnel-data protections and assisted-living training updates; fiscal staff said an oral clarification extended one appropriation deadline to June 30, 2028, at the request of the advisory committee that continues to work on the issue.

Fiscal and procedural context: Nonpartisan fiscal staff characterized the amended Senate file as a policy bill and said they had removed sections with fiscal impact so the version before the committee was nominally policy-only. Some members raised concerns that certain language had been added back into the bill after prior committee action and asked staff to clarify the provenance of that language.

What’s next: SF 476, as amended with HF 7.29 language, is reported to the General Register. The committee recessed pending further negotiations on the three remaining agenda bills and asked staff to preserve bill materials for later consideration.