Committee presents budget
Blueprint, which cuts all programs, still may change
BOISE – The Idaho Legislature’s leading budget-setters put all their cards on the table Thursday, laying out to the 20-member joint budget committee and to the public their tentative plan to balance next year’s budget with far less money than this year.
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 over the past two years.
The biggest single piece of Idaho’s state budget – funding for K-12 public schools – would fall to $1.21 billion next year, from $1.23 billion this year and $1.42 billion last year. The joint committee is scheduled to set the school budget on Monday.
“I think 8.5 percent, while it’s drastic, it’s a lot better than it could have been,” said Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, a member of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.
Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, told the joint committee, “Now obviously that doesn’t stop any of you from making a motion that’s either higher or lower.”
The budget blueprint, in the works for weeks, shifts reserve funds, taps benefit reserves to fund state employee benefits and makes deep cuts in all programs. It eliminates virtually all proposals for new programs or expansions, cuts inflationary adjustments to zero, and removes all funding for Medicaid pricing increases that aren’t mandated by federal guidelines.