As passed by the Appropriations Committee Wednesday, the 2019–21 operating budget would appropriate $52.860 billion from funds subject to the outlook (NGFO), an increase of $48.9 million from the budget originally proposed by the committee Chair.

Of the $48.9 million change in the 2019–21 budget, $18.3 million occurs at the maintenance level (the cost of continuing current services) and $30.6 million is new policy. The policy level increase from 2017–19 is now $2.346 billion. The chart shows the policy level spending changes in the budget bill as proposed by the Chair and as passed by the committee.

The committee also made a few changes to the proposed 2019 supplemental to the 2017–19 operating budget. As I noted yesterday, the committee reduced NGFO spending for emergency fire suppression. Instead, it would make those appropriations from the budget stabilization account (BSA, or the rainy day fund).

Additionally, the outlook based on the budget as passed by Appropriations assumes that there would be more reversions (appropriations not spent) in 2019–21 and 2021–23 than were assumed in the outlook as proposed by the Chair. For example, in the Appropriations-passed outlook, it is assumed that reversions would reduce spending by $293 million in 2019–21, whereas in the Chair’s outlook, it is assumed that they would reduce spending by $247 million in 2019–21.

Altogether, the changes slightly improve the NGFO balance sheet. The unrestricted NGFO ending balance would be $241 million (up from $209 million) in 2019–21 and $128 million (up from $104 million) in 2021–23.

But, with the newly proposed appropriations from the BSA in 2017–19, the 2019–21 BSA balance would drop from $2.450 billion to $2.408 billion.