BRB’s…What are they? (Budget Reconciliation Bills)
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Budget Reconciliation Bill
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With a traditional structure of a state budget, there are usually seven BRB’s that go along with the General Appropriations Bill. In addition, a Capital Outlay Bill is also included in the General Appropriations Bill. A General Appropriations Bill is also called a Feed Bill.
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Generally, each BRB is identified by its title as to what area of the seven state governments the BRB addresses:
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1) General Government BRB
2) General Revenue BRB
3) Health & Welfare BRB
4) Education BRB
5) Public Safety BRB
6) Transportation BRB
7) Environment BRB.
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About a decade ago, the Arizona government started to get more complex. The state constitution requires bills to have only one subject, and the Governor has the authority to line-item veto the General Appropriations Bill. Thus, the Legislature started adding BRBs to the appropriations process to clarify exactly what the lawmakers intended by the individual appropriations that were in the General Appropriations Bill.
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For example, if they wanted a specific amount in the general appropriations bill to be used for teacher’s salaries, they would add it to the Education BRB and specify it there. In the past, legislators would simply put the individual appropriations in the General Appropriations Bill as a footnote. As governors have the legal ability to line-item veto footnotes, lawmakers looked to other ways to avoid specific rejections. A BRB can only be vetoed in whole, or accepted as is. The Governor can’t use the line-item veto on a BRB.
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BRBs have gained popularity as lawmakers have realized that as long as they declared a particular item was related to the appropriations process, they could put a lot of pieces into it. For instance, in the political world of quid pro quo, a legislator’s pet bill that had died in the regular process could be put into a BRB as the price for that member’s vote on the budget. As it now stands, “What’s in the BRB?” is almost more important than what’s in the General Appropriations Bill.
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