BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2005 2/17/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: SARAH BERRY BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/13/2026 10:46 AM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. HB 2005 is not a routine appropriations measure.
It is a structural expansion of centralized state power over citizen data and financial discretion, disguised as operational funding.
This bill appropriates substantial sums for a “secure, cloud-based data warehouse” intended to allow “citizen data integration and sharing across consolidated and non-consolidated agencies.”
That is not maintenance. That is architecture.
You are not funding servers.
You are funding a statewide citizen data spine.
And you are doing so without a standalone statute defining:
Scope limitations Permissible uses Prohibited uses Retention parameters Data minimization standards Audit and correction rights Cross-branch accountability
An appropriation bill is not the proper vehicle to construct a system capable of linking records across agencies under a unified citizen-facing portal. That is policy of constitutional magnitude.
Further, HB 2005 embeds expansive “flexibility” provisions allowing movement between sections and categories. When flexibility attaches to modernization, integration, and security infrastructure lines, legislative control diminishes precisely where oversight must increase.
Appropriations should fund operations.
They should not quietly rewire governance. This bill also relies on inter-branch memoranda of understanding for oversight of major modernization projects. An MOU is not law. It does not create enforceable standards. It does not bind future administrations. It does not substitute for statutory safeguards when citizen data and inter-agency systems are implicated.
The creation of a cross-agency cloud-based integration platform without explicit statutory boundaries is not a neutral act. It materially alters the state’s technical capacity to aggregate, correlate, and deploy personal information at scale.
Once built, such systems do not contract. They expand.
The bill further authorizes substantial transfers, cash-flow maneuvers, and inter-fund movements that dilute transparency in a fiscal instrument already exceeding ordinary line-item clarity. When infrastructure spending and data centralization coexist with broad transfer authority, public traceability diminishes.
HB 2005 is not a simple budget. It is structural entrenchment.
Legislative Notice:
The General Assembly is hereby on notice that funding and implementing a statewide, cloud-based citizen data integration system through an appropriations bill, absent express statutory guardrails and enforceable due process protections, creates foreseeable constitutional, privacy, liability, and separation-of-powers concerns. The structural consequences of this architecture are predictable, permanent, and resistant to later correction.
This is not maintenance. It is consolidation. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2005 2/17/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: ARNIE "HONEST-ABE" DIENOFF-STATE PUBLIC ADVOCATE BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: In-Person 2/17/2026 11:29 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. Cut all unnecessary expenses and waste.
Statutes affected: