Conference committee reviews second reading of budget, flags H. 955 funding differences

The conference committee convened for a second reading of the budget on May 6 and reviewed updated packet materials, organizers said. Committee staff walked members through a revised table of contents and supplemental documents and identified differences between the House and Senate budget language tied to H. 955.

A committee member said, “we were carrying in the Senate version 1.5 million set aside for education transformation,” and noted that the House had included “a $75,000 appropriation for a pre‑K study in H. 955.” The speaker described the net increase from the House to the Senate as $1.425 million but the record also shows the committee flagging uncertainty about whether and how the $75,000 was being counted against the total.

Committee staff described several packet changes intended to make materials easier to navigate: the House‑passed version will be placed adjacent to the Senate version in binders with divider tabs, a web report currently excludes the final appropriation, and a comparison document on housing language will be inserted at the back of members’ packets because it will not fit inside the binder.

Staff further told the committee they had received a letter from the administration that will be entered as item 12 in the workbook. Staff also reported that item 12 (provider rate increases) was removed from the packet; that removal required renumbering so letters and subsequent comparison items shift to new positions in the table of contents.

Members discussed scheduling and decided not to set a firm follow‑up meeting date immediately because many will be on the floor; the group agreed to coordinate later after consulting floor schedules and pending amendment workloads. No formal motions or votes were recorded in the session covered by the transcript.

The committee did not resolve the counting discrepancy on H. 955 during the session; members indicated they would continue research and reconvene when calendar and floor schedules allow.