Prohibit use of statutorily-dedicated accounts for budget certification

Pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the use of statutorily-dedicated accounts for budget certification, beginning in the 2023-24 biennium.

Expressly prohibiting the use of statutorily-dedicated accounts for budget certification in the Constitution would be the most effective way to end the funds consolidation process. This would improve the transparency of the state budget and would ensure that statutorily-dedicated accounts are used only for their intended purpose.

Such a provision would have to be phased-in over time. The provision could read: “The Legislature may not by general law make an unappropriated balance of a dedicated account or fund available for general governmental purposes or certification except by expressly repealing the dedication.”

One way to achieve this would be to reduce the use of statutorily-dedicated accounts for budget certification starting in the 2015-16 biennium, which would give the state four budget cycles to phase out the practice. Therefore, in the first biennium of the phase-out (2015-16) the Legislature could use only 80 percent of the balance of dedicated accounts for budget certification, followed by 60 percent in 2017-18, 40 percent in 2019-20, 20 percent in 2021-22, and zero in 2023-24.