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To: Rich Goldberg From: Governor’s Office of Management and Budget Date: August 10, 2015 Re: House Committee Amendment #2 to Senate Bill 2042 After a review of House Committee Amendment #2 to Senate Bill 2042, it is clear this amendment deviates from the intent of the underlying bill to appropriate pass through federal dollars that have no financial impact on the state’s general funds budget deficit. The amendment provides nearly $1.5 billion in additional appropriation authority for FY16 to the underlying bill, including $585 million in general revenue fund appropriations for various human services programs. The amounts appropriated for these programs in this amendment are identical to the amounts included in the unconstitutional, unbalanced budget passed by the General Assembly in May that was out of balance by at least $4 billion. Additionally, this amendment includes nearly $452 million in appropriations from other special state funds. This includes $165 million for the State portion of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, an amount identical to the appropriation made for this program in the unconstitutional, unbalanced budget passed by the General Assembly in May. These funds could be used to help balance the budget. Seeing no accompanying pieces of legislation that would reduce state spending and noting that many of the appropriations contained herein are at identical levels to those contained in the majority’s unconstitutional May budget submission leads GOMB to the logical conclusion that these 4 appropriations would be part of an overall unbalanced, unconstitutional budget.