Budgets: ‘Goes quickly when it’s bare-bones’

Substitute Sen. Darrell Kerby, R-Bonners Ferry, actually made a budget motion during budget-setting in JFAC this morning, in his third day on the job filling in for Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint. That means he proposed a budget for a state agency - and it passed. The joint committee was in the midst of setting simple, bare-bones budgets for agencies like the executive office of the governor, the Division of Financial Management and the lieutenant governor’s office. Kerby proposed the motion for the lieutenant governor, “a maintenance budget,” he said. “I believe this budget is another bare-bones operation,” Kerby told JFAC. The vote, like those that preceded it, was unanimous. Said JFAC Co-Chair Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, “It goes very quickly when everything’s bare-bones, doesn’t it?”

The budget set for the executive office of the governor showed a cut in general funds of 4 percent, and an overall drop of 79 percent. It includes $15,000 from the budget stabilization funds for transition costs if a new governor is elected in November, a legal requirement. For the DFM, the budget shows a 9.5 percent drop in state general funds and an overall decrease of 10.2 percent, and for the lieutenant governor, whose office receives only state general funds, a 9.7 percent drop. Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, and Rep. Cliff Bayer, R-Boise, also worked on all three budget plans.

Asked what he thought of his budget, DFM chief Wayne Hammon said, ” Doing more with less and living within the means of the state’s taxpayers is what we have asked all agencies across state government to do; DFM is no different.”