JFAC members squabble over IDWR budget, impacts of fee increase bills

Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, said he thinks his proposal for deeper cuts at the Idaho Department of Water Resources would be offset if two fee-increase measures that already have passed the House become law. “We can’t sit here and pretend that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, when we vote for fees on one side,” Vander Woude declared. “Their recommendation is that it would help the general fund, and I took their word for it.”

Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, said the department went through a zero-based budgeting process that identified programs that should have been funded solely by dedicated funds and were receiving general funds; that’s what the fee bills address, he said. “The general funds were simply to be put back into the general-fund obligations that the department had,” Wood said, “not to be dumped back into … general government.” He said, “This is one of the smaller departments with more statutory mandates than most departments have, and water is a concern to every single Idahoan. Now I understand that this puts it over the target by a small amount, compared to some budgets.” But he backed Patrick’s budget proposal.

Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, said he disagreed. “We can shift some of those general funds and put those more toward meeting our target of balancing our budget,” he said.