Legislative Fiscal Notes

Fiscal notes are written by staff of the legislature's Oversight Division

A fiscal note is an estimate by the division's staff as on the financial impact to government about a measure -- either a positive revenue or negative revenue effect.

A fiscal note estimate can be based on information from one or more state agencies that would be affected by the bill or with financial information involving the bill.

Sometimes, Legislative Oversight will use financial information from outside, independent organizations such as academic research units.

Fiscal note estimates are broken down by the state's fiscal year (July 1 to June 30 in the next year).

Legislation, however, does not take effect until late August (unless the bill takes effect immediately upon the governor's approval) by the legsilature adopting an "emergency clause."

When citing fiscal note information in their stories, reporters usually refer to the "first full year of implementation." But that's not always easy to determine.

Some bills can have effective provisions that extend full implementation beyond the first full fiscal year. And, occasionally, bills have been written to delay the full implementation beyond the limited number of years covered by a fiscal note.

Not every bill will get a fiscal note. In more recent years, bills not assigned to committee until the final weeks of the legsilative session are unlikely to warrant staff efforts for researching the fiscal impact of a measure.

There can be multiple fiscal notes written for a bill as it progresses in the legislative process. For a bill that clears the legislature, the fiscal notes, in chronological order, may include:

1. The introduced version of the bill in the original chamber.

2. A committee subsitute.

3. Any floor substitutes (current rules allow floor substitutes only in the Senate.

4. The final version approved by the original chamber.

5. A committee subsitute in the second chamber.

6. Any floor substitutes in the second chamber.

7. The verson approved by the second chamber.

8. A conference committee substitute, if a conference committee adopted a substitute for the two chamber versions.

9. The final version passed by the legislature -- termed the "Truly Agreed and Finally Passed" version (or TAFP).

Note: After the 2019 legislative session, Legislative Oversight abandoned it's web site that had all the fiscal note versions written for a bill going back for decades.

Instead, now you have to go to the specific bill website of the chamber of introduction to get the full list of fiscal notes for a bill.

That's not a problem for Senate bills and joint resolutions, their fiscal note pages replicate original Oversight Division's pages for a bill, at least as this help is being written.

However, the list of fiscal notes for a House bill are not necessarily in chronological order. Even worse, House links do not provide a clear indication as to the status of the bill addressed by the fiscal note (introduction, committee substitute, etc.).

The last three characters of the main name of the link (before the tag .ORG) provide a clue:

• #: This digit seems to indicate fiscal notes on the various versions of bills in a chamber (HBs/HJRs in the House and SBs/SJRs in the Senate). Latter numbers seem reflect the second chamber. If there is more than one digit, it may indicate a bill returning to the chamber with changes made in the second chamber.

• N: This letter seems to indicate the initial version of a bill for a chamber. If so, 1N probably indicates the original orginal version for the bill introduced into the first chamber or the original version received by the second chamber

• P: This refers to the perfected version of the bill, apparently.

• T: This indicates the "Truly Agreed and Finally Passed" version of a bill -- the final version passed by the General Assembly and sent to the governor or placed on a statewide ballot.