SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) — During the Joint Committee on Appropriations (JCA) meeting on Monday, one item was pushed to clear up the budget and offer more transparency on government spending.
During the meeting the committee considered letters of intent, one item on the agenda would put forth a request from the JCA that the Bureau of Finance and Management (BFM) work with all state agencies to provide more information on what state money is being used for in the general appropriations bill (G- bill).
The new system would break down programs by budget unit, including a description of each program’s functions and a breakdown of general, federal, and other funds and Full Time Equivalent’s (FTE) by program, based on the FY26 ongoing budget, for JCA’s review at the July meeting this summer.
This proposal comes from a work group created six years ago, to address the structure and intent of the G-bill.
An example of the proposed format can be found bellow.
Republican Sen. Chris Karr said it’s about “good government and good oversight.”
“We’re talking about something that’s really important here, overhauling the layout, the structure, and what goes into that G-bill so it indicates specific intent and use of dollars,” Karr said. “We would have them broke out versus have this lump sum of dollars where nobody knows and it’s rather ambiguous on how they can be used.”
Karr added that the goal of this isn’t to overwhelm legislatures with additional information but to provide meaningful data that shows what funds are actually being utilized for.
“Do we want to have a 10,000 page G-bill? We do not. We don’t need all of the data that’s in the accounting system,” Karr said. ” When you just use a summarized bucket of money, it also doesn’t provide any clarity to individuals on what the dollars can be used for, should be used for, and that’s the problem we ran into several years.”
Steven Kohler, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Finance and Management, said it needs to make sure that the added information doesn’t result in excess bureaucracy.
“The goal would be to have a concise yet explainable G-bill and information for agencies to report back to this committee so that there is an accountability as well as an informed conversation about what we’re spending funding on and what we’re doing,” Kohler said.
No action was taken regarding the letter of intent. The full letter of intent will be heard at the Joint Committee on Appropriations at its next meeting in May.
