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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

The budget blueprint…

Here's a link to my full story at spokesman.com on the budget blueprint that the JFAC co-chairs laid out for the joint committee and the public today, and here's a link to the numbers - the five pages of figures that legislative budget director Cathy Holland-Smith presented to the committee to help explain the blueprint, which shows how next year's budget could be balanced with the much lower anticipated tax revenue. The result: Schools would see an unprecedented 8.5 percent cut in state funding; higher education funding would drop 14 percent; and Medicaid would drop 3.5 percent, for a 25.9 percent drop in state Medicaid funding since last year.

The plan, which is extremely complicated, calls for shifting reserve funds and tapping dedicated funds as well as deep cuts in all areas. The final word comes when the joint committee votes on each agency's budget; this morning, it already set the budget for the state Department of Agriculture. Monday, public schools are up.
 



Eye On Boise

News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.