We never adjourn. We just recess. Director Harper, do you have something to say? Or maybe the people who wanna present can come up? Oh wait, no, that's, it's just you. Yes, just you. Director Harper? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Craig Harper, JBC staff here to present the, in lieu of Ms. Shen, who is out of town, revisions to the Department of Public Health and Environment's interim supplemental request related to the WIC program. The governor's office submitted a revised request and an updated letter on Monday,
which would be yesterday, with some adjustments to the request and a letter stating the governor's intent. I've attached both there's an excerpt from the letter and from the request in the memorandum that I've provided. The memo is dated today. Subject line is update to FY twenty five-twenty six, interim supplemental request for WIC. And I have excerpts from the letter and the request in that memo. I've also attached the governor's letter. Just to give you a brief reminder of where we stand right now, you addressed this request last week,
and delayed action on it. The request is for $7,500,000 of general fund as an over expenditure for the women, infants and children program within CDPHE. That over expenditure would be as part of a line item that currently provides $88,100,000 of total funds for WIC. There's $126,000 general fund appropriation. Side note that that's associated with CBMS costs and an estimated $88,000,000 with rounding for federal funds to support both benefit payments and the associated FTE.
The request is to provide $7,500,000 to cover the anticipated cost of benefits for October 2025 in the event of a federal government shutdown starting tomorrow. The remote possibility of something like that occurring? It seems possible that that may happen, yes, based on press accounts. Keep hope alive, Greg. During last week's conversation, Ms. Shen and the Office of Legislative Legal Services raised a couple of concerns that wanted to sort of call to your attention again in light of the governor's response
in the letter. The first is that your staff, we do not believe that this the request meets interim supplemental criteria because It will after ten P. M. Tonight, Colorado time. The unforeseen circumstance has not happened yet, although it may happen late tonight as you're noting. And the second is that we have questions about the department's authority to spend the state funds on benefits. As I've noted here, state funds have never covered WIC benefits. There's no clear authority that would allow for the payments and there's no statutory direction regarding the distribution of funds.
So in response to those concerns or at least my assumption is that it was in response to those concerns, the governor's office has submitted a new letter with some revised language in it that I'm now at the bottom of Page one of my memorandum. The letter includes language assuring the committee that the department would only use the state funds to support WIC if the federal government shuts down tonight and two, federal funding is temporarily unavailable. So commitment from the governor's office via the letter to only use the money if
those conditions are met. And what's the legislative plan? Getting there just a second. Going to Page two, it reiterates the administration's commitment to seek full reimbursement from the federal government should the state have to use the state money for this purpose. And three, the letter expresses conceptual support for legislation to clarify processes for approving spending in the event of future federal shutdowns. Again, one of our key criteria issues here is that the unforeseen circumstance that is discussed in the thirteen thirty one criteria has not yet been met.
And so the effort from the governor's office is to craft legislation with the committee that would anticipate this likely scenario in the future and allow for the committee for the governor's office to submit a request prior to the shutdown beginning and for the committee to consider it and clarify that that would still meet thirteen thirty one criteria. The request itself, which they revised, is now submitted as emergency supplemental four from CDPHE, and that provided a bit more detail that I've laid out in the,
italicized sections on page two. They're asking, while the department still believes that the General Assembly has the authority to appropriate funds for the WIC program, they appreciate the committee's concerns about clarity in the statute and would welcome the opportunity to work on legislation with staff for the next legislative session. As your staff, I think, in our mind, that would look like clear authority to use state money for WIC benefits should you choose to do so and also some clarity on the direction that that on the distribution of those funds.
The revised supplemental has a bit more detail on the governor's request as well, which is the longer paragraph, which I won't go into in detail for the presentation. But on their vision for how the thirteen thirty one statute would change, requiring submission by the governor two weeks before the shutdown and committee's consideration one week before the shutdown to try and avoid the very compressed time frame that we're under right now, but also clarify that taking action before the shutdown begins would still allow the request to meet criteria. As your staff,
I don't think anything about the revised request changes our recommendation because at the staff level, we still believe that the request does not meet the thirteen thirty one criteria. We do still have the concerns about statutory authority for the distribution of benefits. However, we also recognize the potential impacts of the lapse in this funding. And, if you all elect to approve the request, then we agree that the legislation would be beneficial to avoid this kind of tension and uncertainty in the future. Which is why we have mister Lively here. Mister Lively,
you're comfortable moving ahead with drafting legislation along those lines if we vote yes today? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Pierce Lively, Office of Legislative Legal Services. Yeah, of course, if the Committee requests a bill or if any of the members on the Committee do so, I'd be happy to do that and work with whomever you all think is best to do so. Great. If we go ahead and approve, department request, I suppose, Director Harper, is there any modification to that that we would make to align with should the committee choose to move ahead, suggestions that we sometimes get in these memos? Director Harper. Mr. Chair,
I'm not aware of specific changes that I would recommend at this time. You all would obviously see this any potential bill would come back before you before introduction, and this may well be a briefing issue that would be relevant either depending on the breadth of the bill. I think one key question that I have as staff is how unique WIC is among all of the federally funded programs that we have. I think I would recommend that you would if you go forward with legislation that you want really strong sideboards that the only scenario that you could take action in
anticipation of would be a federal government shutdown. Had a discussion with Mr. Maclear this morning and he noted that anything could happen at any time. So trying to have very narrow sideboards that this is the one scenario that you can take action in anticipation of, I think, would be a key piece. But I it is a little bit it remains a bit unclear to me how wide of a net you would want to cast for federal programs that you may want to backfill. It seems fairly clear,
given the scale of federal money in our budget, that backfilling all of the federal funds, for example, is not something that the state would be able to do. Just how unique this program is and how unique it is to this specific year has been kind of an open question for us. It sounds like it has some unique characteristics, but I do have some concerns that this bill could be broad enough that you could end up with a lot of supplemental requests to backfill potential federal funding and that that may put you in a tough position. So trying to narrow it down to the most critical needs would be my recommendation,
but I'm not sure what that would look like at this time. Great. Senator Kirkmayer? Thank you. So, appreciate all the comments here. My understanding is WIC is a different program because it's not like a three year program or a grant type program. It's funded annually. And that at least I thought I read that one, the document someplace. So, anyways, first of all, I just wanna say thank you to director Ferrendino. I had a long conversation with him on Sunday. And, I'm just gonna say where I'm at, and I sent you all a text message to kinda let you know what I I and director Ferndino had talked about so everybody was in the same pay on
the same page. But first of all, I think we're we're all probably in agreement. At least it sounded like to me last time when we all met. I don't wanna see a lapse in the funding for, food for kids, you know, babies and formula. I mean, I'm just I I think we need to figure this one out. We're in, like, a catch 22. The shutdown may not happen. We may not even need this. The shutdown may happen if we don't get this done and get the coding changed, you know, now for in the next couple of days to get the money out the door, then that causes just a different issue kind of thing. So my suggestion was to,
director Ferandino to help us, you know, maybe put some language together that would work, that would, somewhat give us some cover or whatever. And at least start having us address a process by which we would how we as a JVC would be able to act and react in the case of a federal shutdown. Doesn't mean that we have to approve everything that comes through in a federal from a federal shutdown, but at least we would be well within our, statutory provisions that we would have some authority or at least have some process or procedure by which we could do things outside of the legislative session.
And that was my idea and why I asked, director Ferrendino to maybe come up with at least a concept of the draft language that we were talking about. Knowing that, again, you know, we can ask for a draft bill and we can see what Pierce can come up what magic Pierce can come up with. And then, certainly, we would have time come January, whatever, to massage the bill to make it work for whatever circumstances that may occur now from now in between January even. So I just wanted to I just wanted to make sure that we had,
like, cover, so to speak, that we were looking for a legislative fix, and we weren't just going rogue as a joint budget committee. Hope that makes sense. That's why I asked earlier to make sure that we do have a motion on at least drafting legislation that would, give us that kind of authority in the off session should there be a federal shutdown. And I think, as director Harper mentioned, we're not exactly clear what the shape of that would look like. I think we've all discussed, you know, sort of possible things to include, strong guardrails, those sorts of things.
But, we don't have a draft bill in front of the committee today, but I do believe that authorizing this, the department request includes authorizing going to drafting. We don't need a separate motion for that. But if folks feel more comfortable with a separate motion, this is my last, time as chair, so the more motions we get, the better. Mr. Lively. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick question. The requesting legislation related to a federal shutdown or some other unforeseen circumstance to fix timeline issues. There was also mention in the department's document that Director Harper read about potentially clarifying
some of the department's authority with respect to this specific program. I imagine those would be two separate bills. Is that would the committee like to request both of those, just one of those or some other sort of combination? I believe both. Okay. I think you raised the concerns over, whether or not we have the authority to actually fund this last time. It's clear that we don't not have the authority, but it would be nice to have expressly in law that this is something we can do. So, any, double negative is very clear. Any other comments, questions, concerns? Madam vice chair. Thank you. So first,
I move, that the committee approve the department request, which includes one of the pieces of legislation that we have discussed. Are there any objections? Seeing none, that motion passes six o. Madam vice chair. Thank you, mister chair. I move that the committee, authorize staff to begin draft legislation that, articulates additional, goals with respect to guardrails and, authorities during a government shutdown, again, as discussed by this committee. Are there any objections? Seeing none, that motion passes six-zero. Just to be clear, we have authorized the funding,
we have authorized the drafting of legislation to, ensure that such funding is within the state's legal authority and we've authorized drafting for a bill to say that our actions today are within this the legislature, the JVC's legal authority, to make. So those are the three different things that we've authorized with two motions today. Is that an accurate summary anyone have? Seeing Director Harper nod, so I I think we're good. Any other any concerns or comments from the committee on that? I know folks have a hard stop, so if we can give you back ten minutes.
Alright. I think that's all the business we have before us here today. It's been nice. Thanks, everyone. With that, the joint budget committee will stand in recess. Good job. Good job.