RD219 - Report on the Governor's Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund (AFID) for the Preceding Six-Month Period Ending June 30, 2017


Executive Summary:
The General Assembly created the AFID incentive program during the 2012 legislative session, funding it at $1 million per year beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2013, with $750,000 of each year’s amount dedicated to AFID Facility Grants and $250,000 to AFID Planning Grants. In FY 2015, amendments to the AFID program were approved by the General Assembly through Item 89 of the 2015 Appropriation Act (Chapter 665, 2015 Acts of Assembly). The amendments removed the budget language which specified a portion of the funding to be used for Planning Grants, so that both AFID Facility and Planning Grant programs draw upon the fund without restriction. For FY 2017, $2,000,000 was appropriated to the AFID fund (Chapter 780, 2016 Acts of Assembly). In October 2016, the Governor approved a budget reduction plan that reduced the general fund amount deposited to the AFID fund by $220,000, resulting in a total deposit of $1,780,000 for FY 2017.