I serve on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee is charged with the task of putting together the State’s budget.

In other words, we decide how the State spends its money, and this year we have a lot of extra money to spend.

Last Thursday the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee finished hearings on 123 bills. That is the highest number of bills ever to be assigned to the Appropriations Committee.

The reason we had so many bills this year had to do with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, otherwise known as ARPA. The federal government h...