House judiciary panel sends $1.4 billion budget bill to ways and means committee

“Short and sweet” was how Co-chair Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover) described Thursday’s meeting of the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee.

Indeed, the committee took less than 10 minutes to make the last few procedural moves to send the omnibus judiciary finance bill to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Those moves were to adopt two mostly technical amendments to a delete-all amendment to HF2300, which is sponsored by Scott.

[MORE: Judiciary committee considers $1.43 billion budget bill for 2026-27 biennium]

“Obviously we don’t agree on everything, and obviously the members of this committee don’t agree on everything,” said Co-chair Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester). “But we have been able to put together, I think, a good bill that goes forward with the resources that we were given.”

“We’ve had really good discussions here,” added Scott.

The General Fund appropriation proposed in the bill is $1.43 billion over the next two fiscal years, a $30 million increase above the February base forecast and a total that meets the fiscal target set for the committee by House leadership.

The committee gained another $23 million by canceling unused 2024-25 appropriations to the State Competency Attainment Board ($11 million), Cannabis Expungement Board ($10 million in budget savings) and Office of Appellate Counsel and Training ($2 million).

[MORE: View the fiscal spreadsheet]

The bill would also make several policy changes, including:

• establishing private privileges for participants in restorative justice victim-offender conferences;
• allowing courts to charge fees for private attorneys to access court documents;
• modifying the definition of “custodian” in orders of protection;
• modifying procedures for foreclosure sales; and
• adopting the Uniform Special Deposits Act.