Economy Plan: Batt Squeezes Budget To Bone

Making good on his pledge to hold the line on spending, Republican Gov. Phil Batt outlined an economic plan Wednesday that finances the biggest property tax cut in Idaho history by essentially squeezing growth out of the state budget.

“In economic good times, we can become lazy with our state resources,” Batt told a joint session of the 53rd Legislature. “We fail to search for efficiency or savings in government until a fiscal crisis arises. This is not the way to run a business, and it’s not the way to run a state government.”

The state’s first GOP governor in 24 years accepted a projected 10.3 percent increase in state tax collections for the current budget year. That created a $65 million surplus that Batt proposed using for major prison and university construction as well as additional one-time property tax relief and a handful of unplanned program expenses.

But reflecting the cautious economic optimism he expressed in his State of the State address Monday and that was echoed by economists a day later, the governor scaled back the projected increase in revenue to 7.5 percent for the new budget year that begins July 1.

In fulfilling his campaign promise to cut property taxes statewide, Batt also endorsed the approach advocated by House Speaker Michael Simpson for checking government spending - reduce the amount of revenue lawmakers have to spend.

But in doing that, Batt left lawmakers with some tough decisions - especially in regard to education support.

“Nobody has suggested that doing what the governor has proposed will be easy,” Simpson said. “there will be tough votes. But I think this Legislature is prepared to make those votes.”

The new governor slashed 104 vacant state jobs - most in the Health and Welfare Department - so he could staff a new prison unit and add state troopers and parole officers and still limit the net increase in total state workers to 16.

Batt reinforced his reputation as a proponent of keeping state employee pay apace the salaries in the private sector by proposing a 5 percent state worker pay raise.

And he earmarked $2 million for a new juvenile justice department, $2.26 million for additional cleanup of the Bunker Hill Superfund site and a grudging $4 million for continuing the controversial Snake River Basin Water Rights adjudication.

But elsewhere, he told the nation’s most Republican Legislature, “You will find that my blueprint is a little less than a maintenance budget.”

Aid to education fared comparably well in the $1.35 billion general tax budget, but the governor’s support levels were substantially lower than any of the more moderate lawmakers and even state Schools Superintendent Anne Fox had contemplated.

He proposed a “very generous” increase state aid to public schools of 7 percent to $664 million. Education interests had sought a 14.7 percent increase to $712.

For higher education, Batt proposed just a 2 percent increase for the universities and Lewis-Clark State College, $3.4 million over this year to $168 million, and only $900,000 more for the two junior colleges, pushing their support to $10.8 million.