Expenditures in Excess of Appropriations

      Joint Budget Committee. Under current law, the controller may allow any department, institution, or agency of the state, including any institution of higher education, to make an expenditure in excess of the amount authorized by an item of appropriation for the fiscal year if certain conditions are satisfied. One of those conditions is that the overexpenditure is necessary due to unforeseen circumstances arising while the general assembly is not meeting in a regular or special session. The bill modifies that condition to also include when an overexpenditure is necessary due to a lapse in a federal appropriation that the joint budget committee determines is reasonably likely to occur while the general assembly is not meeting in regular or special session during which such overexpenditure can be legislatively addressed.

The bill also makes a conforming amendment to the process by which the general assembly can remove the spending restriction that the controller attaches to an overexpenditure. If a supplemental appropriation is enacted for the overexpenditure or a portion of it, the bill requires that:

• The controller's spending restriction is released in full; and
• The department, institution, or agency of the state's overexpenditure authority ends.(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)