Legislators cut armory funding

BOISE – A plan to pay for a new Idaho National Guard armory in Sandpoint was rejected by legislative budget writers Thursday.

It was the latest casualty, as Idaho lawmakers pare the budget that Gov. Butch Otter proposed in January.

Federal funds will be available to build a new armory in Sandpoint in four to six years, but the Guard was recruiting so successfully in the area that it wanted to build temporary facilities and place a 62-member unit there.

“With our budget this year, this did not seem to be the time to start this program,” Sen. Mel Richardson, R-Idaho Falls, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and state Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, said the armory is still coming, just not as quickly.

“If indeed the federal government’s got that money on the way, I would be willing to wait,” Keough said. “I could use that $395,000 somewhere else – forensics comes to mind.”

The joint committee had nixed the governor’s proposal to add six forensics staffers to the Idaho State Police budget to cope with a growing workload and backlogs at the state crime lab.

Frugal budgets also were set Thursday for Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care for the elderly, poor and disabled.

“There will be no rate increases for anyone,” said Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley. “The economic times would indicate that that’s what we have to do.”

The overall increase set for the $1.4 billion state-federal program was just 6.9 percent; 15 percent annual increases have been common in recent years. Wood said when caseload growth, state employee raises and benefit costs are considered, that’s actually a small decrease.

Lawmakers also axed a plan to replace vehicles with fewer than 95,000 miles on them, unless they are specialty vehicles.

“It’s an extremely flat and prudent budget,” Wood said. “There are certainly not going to be any frills there.”