Every Idaho state agency has received a memo from the Legislature's joint budget committee asking it to prepare and submit information by this Thursday on how a possible general fund reduction of 5 percent could be accomplished at the agency in next year's budget. "Although the governor's initial general fund recommendation for state government included a reduction of $35 million in additional cuts, it was too optimistic considering the recent news that we have received about revenues," the letter states. "The co-chairmen of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee have directed our office to notify all agencies that receive general fund support consider programmatic changes that support a lower spending level for FY 2012." You can read the full memo here.

Such a cut would total $126.3 million across the state budget, but that's including the $35 million in cuts Gov. Butch Otter already recommended in his proposed 2012 budget. The memo includes a breakout showing, straight across, what a 5 percent cut in general funds would mean for each state agency. By far the single largest hit: $60.8 million to public schools. That would be a cut from this year's level, in which schools already took a historic budget hit that Otter has long promised he'll make back up as soon as the state's economy improves. The second-largest figure on the list is $22 million for Medicaid, but Otter's already recommended $25.2 million in cuts there.

Otter's budget anticipated just 3 percent growth in state tax revenues next year, though the state's economic forecast anticipates 6.9 percent growth, and Idaho's forecasters have stuck by that figure. The difference, which Otter would leave on the table: $91 million. Many lawmakers said they wanted to wait for January's tax revenue figures before deciding which way the economy really was heading; they came in $15 million ahead of forecasts.