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[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon, this is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 04/28/2026. It's just after 03:00 and we're back on S327, the Economic Development Bill, to hear about the fiscal note from Pat, the representative of fiscal office. Thank you for coming back. I know you're all running around in different committees at different points in time, so we appreciate you coming back to see us on this one.
[Patrick Titterton (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I have to completely shift my brain space right now from income to income and health care taxes to the economic development.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. It didn't all get out of your head while you walked down here.
[Patrick Titterton (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Let's hope not. But Patrick Tarriton joined fiscal office. I am sharing my screen, this document, as the chair mentioned, is on your website. And I guess I'll probably mostly focus on the provisions I think you all care the most about. I guess starting with the fiscal impact section, there's sort of two pieces in here. One is the per diem aspects as it relates to the convention task force and the additional meetings. The normal estimate we have, like process we have for that gets us to that $9,600 per diem cost. If representative Duke was still here, she could attest to this. Scott Moore has confirmed to me during their six meetings last year, there were no actual per diem costs because they weren't claimed. So they were eligible, but ultimately opted not to claim them. But from an accounting perspective, normal process where you put the estimate for that at $9,600 And so the other sort of piece here has to do with the Veggie program. So I guess I'll just, to be very clear on what the repeal language had said. So what this language does is removes the sunset, right? What the sunset, if it had gone through, would have done would have stopped the Betsy's ability to issue new awards, but awards that had previously already been issued would still be sort of on the books. And so if the sunset had gone through that 2,200,000, which is from their latest report on what was actually paid out, that would have a slow ramp down over time, ultimately going towards zero. So what the language that you all have and what Ways and Means had in their amendment language was to remove the sunset on Pepsi's ability to continue awarding new awards.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So they can keep awarding.
[Patrick Titterton (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So they can continue awarding. The sunset would not have taken this cost off the books right away. It would have had a slow ramp down at $2 So the other piece also is the final approval cap for the program had been set at $10,000,000 After going and looking at veggie reports, the annual reports that they do, it did not appear that they had been over 10,000,000 at any point. And remember, they have the 10,000,000 of final approval cap with a contingency where they can come back and request 5,000,000 more from JFC. So as far back as we looked, they had not been over the $10,000,000 figure in a very, very long time. And in many years, they're under the $5,000,000 limit, which is what this language is proposing. This language would likely trigger them to need to come to JFC a little bit more often to request that contingent 5,000,000, but not necessarily looking at the report consistently. And I think the conversation I heard in Ways and Means about lowering this cap, but allowing the sunset to go away was that previously the sunset, or I guess currently still technically, the sunset acts as sort of a check-in on the program, see how it's doing and all that. So kind of like clockwork every couple of years, the legislature is back looking at the same language, right, about the sunset and the repeal of it. So instead of doing that with the lowering of the cap and thus triggering them to come to GMC on occasion for their 5,000,000 contingent amount, that can sort of act as a check-in on the program and how things are going. So I think those were sort of the two primary fiscal impact pieces of what's coming to We looked at and you heard a testimony about the business resource and growth inventory study. There's no physical impact associated with that. We talked about the convention center, the hospitality education study. Again, there's no money being appropriated and no convenience connected with that. Same is true of the apprenticeship pilot report. I guess with the rural industry development grant program, there was that change in there that grants may not exceed under current law, 1,000,000 or 20% of the total project costs. And it's the lesser of those two amounts. So the language you have is increasing from 20 to 50%, the lesser of a million or 50% with the ability to award an extra million for a project in a federal disaster area. So I think I think Rick Rick mentioned about 2.5 currently in the fund, and the senate construct for the budget right now has a further 2,000,000. So with the penny, it's just I think the most important thing to remember is that the any tax associated on a cash transaction is still going to be calculated on the unrounded amount, even though the change being exchanged may not exactly match that. So because it's being calculated on the unrounded amount, there's no change to how any of these those transactions, like in the sales tab for sales tax purposes, for example, would be calculated. Right.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So revenue no revenue changes as a result of this. Right.
[Patrick Titterton (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then there's the CPACE CPACE program, which I kind of thought of it a little bit like the town sort of operating as a like an escrow agent. Like when you have a mortgage, your lender will actually collect when you make your payment, a portion of that that is for property taxes. So they will pay it on your behalf because they don't want to lean on your house, of course. So I kind of conceptually was thinking about this set up that way. It's important to remember for the municipalities, they're able to charge for their costs for administering this if they opt to get it to join in. It is not It is in addition to what their municipal property tax bill is, So it's not affecting their municipal property tax collections. So from those two angles, and it's not superseding anything to do with education property taxes. So all just kind of a way to say it's a very complicated program to me anyway, but there's no identifiable fiscal impact to the state.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not seeing any other questions, so the cost from our perspective is the $9,600 and that is going to be in the general assembly budget. So no additional money. Any questions that anybody has? Guess, Tom, you have a short one. Okay, are people ready to vote on this bill? We don't have any amendments on this one. We're waiting for the amendment on the other bill. Maybe by the time we're done, we'll have O'Grady's amendment on the other bill. All right, if that's the case I'd entertain a motion to approve S327 and as amended or voted to also. John and Lynn? Approval to the right wording?
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, the motion is packed favorably reports as 27 has passed the Senate, amended by House Commerce and Economic Development for the amended House Committee. As a means, okay.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Any further discussion on this bill? Seeing none, when the clerk's ready, please call the roll.
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Bluemle? Yes. Representative Dickinson?
[Eileen (Lynn) Dickinson (Member)]: Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes.
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Laroche? Yes. Representative Wrochke? Yes. Representative Michael? Yes. Representative Squirrell? Yes. Representative Stevens? Yes. Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Representative Shuck?
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. 1100.
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Okay.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Thank you everybody. Thanks for coming back We're all set, so we'll put this, give this to the clerk this afternoon. So that would be probably Thursday, Friday. Great, thank you. Great, thank you. Bye now. Bye. I don't think I have anything yet from Let me just check. All right. So we'll all
[Patrick Titterton (Joint Fiscal Office)]: sit
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: tight, but let's