Gov. Little signs so-called ‘crappy bill,’ giving way to conservative hardliners

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Tuesday signed sweeping budget cuts into law for the current fiscal year, delivering a win to hardliners in his own party who have pushed this session for shrinking the size of Idaho’s government.

The law will require a 1% additional cut at most state agencies beyond the 3% holdbacks Little ordered last summer to account for revenue shortfalls. That’s a 1% cut that must be accounted for within the remaining three and a half months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Idaho lawmakers are trying to balance the budget this year after cutting over $450 million in revenue through extensive tax cuts last year. Since 2005, per-capita state spending has remained flat, adjusted for inflation.

“Idahoans expect their state government to operate efficiently and effectively, and the balanced budget we approved for the current fiscal year delivers on both fronts,” Little said in a statement Tuesday. “I appreciate my partners in the Legislature for working closely with my office to rightsize state government to match the taxpayers’ means while minimizing the impact of spending reductions.”

Little’s office had previously said he doesn’t support the added rollback, which the Legislature’s Republican supermajority sent to his desk anyway. The two-term governor seeking reelection could have signed the bill, vetoed the bill, vetoed specific line items in the bill, or let the cuts become law without his signature.

At the governor’s request, the Legislature held off from the additional 1% cut to K-12 public education, including high school career technical education programs, public safety and Idaho’s Medicaid program, read the statement obtained by the Idaho Statesman. The Legislature’s budget committee restored some funding for seasonal wildfire protection, preventing parole officer furloughs and providing state tax commission needs to carry out changes under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, it said.

Little waited until Monday night, just one day before the deadline, to approve the cuts laid out in Senate Bill 1331. His budget director, Lori Wolff, said the extra cuts in the bill amounted to $14.5 million.

An undercurrent of frustration from the across-the-board cuts this year — and still more planned for next year — has settled in at the Capitol as the session threatens to extend into April.

“Frankly, we’ve cut too much,” Rep. Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome, said on the House floor. “I didn’t come to Boise to burn a lot of these things down.”

In the Senate, where the cuts squeaked out by a single vote, lawmakers derided the slashing as harmful and irresponsible.

House Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian, called it “a crappy bill that we have to vote on. But it’s a necessary bill.”

The up to 4% cuts are for this fiscal year. For next year, the budget committee also voted to cut an extra 2% from the fiscal 2027 budgets, meaning up to 5% next year. Those cuts are now baked into the base budgets for agencies, and lawmakers have already started to vote on those proposals.

Last week, the Senate shot down the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s massive budget for 2027. So far this week, the Senate has delayed votes on budget bills for two days.

But between Little signing the bill and the makeup of the Legislature, it’s unclear how far lawmakers who are unhappy with continued cuts will get. They appear to lack the support needed to prevent further slashing of state budgets.

“I don’t think we have the votes,” Rep. Erin Bingham, R-Idaho Falls, told the Statesman, when asked about voting down budgets.

Reporter Kevin Fixler contributed.

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