Idaho House overwhelmingly OKs school budget, though Barbieri worries taxpayers can’t afford it

BOISE – A public school budget that makes way for a 7.4 percent funding increase passed the Idaho House overwhelmingly on Monday, though one North Idaho lawmaker voted against all seven pieces of the budget.

“You’re just looking at so much money,” Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, said after the vote. “There’s got to be a way that we can at least … address the waste. The resistance has got to start somewhere.”

Each of the seven bills that make up the school budget passed with just a handful of “no” votes. The one that got the most dissenting votes, passing 59-8, covers services for the deaf and blind. It drew “no” votes from North Idaho Reps. Sage Dixon, R-Ponderay, and Shannon McMillan, R-Silverton, in addition to Barbieri.

Barbieri said when it comes to health care and public schools, “I understand the concerns about those. I just think at a certain point the question has to be asked: Can the taxpayer afford it?”

The school budget bills that passed Monday, and now head to the Senate, actually only add up to a 6.8 percent increase in state funding for next year, but additional bills still on their way bump it up to 7.4 percent. None of the bills drew any negative debate, prompting House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, to remark, “There have been other years where these bills have taken longer.”

The public school budget is the largest single piece of Idaho’s state budget. The bills still need Senate passage and the governor’s signature to become law, but budget bills rarely change once they’re set by the Legislature’s joint budget committee.

Among the handful of House members voting against the school budget bills, McMillan, R-Silverton, voted against six of the seven, excepting only the facilities division. Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, voted against four of the seven; and Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, opposed three of the seven, as did Reps. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg; and Rep. Sage Dixon, R-Ponderay.

Dixon, Sims, and McMillan joined Barbieri in opposing the portion of the budget that includes restoring discretionary funds to school districts, on a per-classroom basis, to 2009 levels.

Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, the House minority leader, offered his congratulations to the joint budget committee for “doing their best for the public school system in the state of Idaho,” but warned, “There are still lots of schools that can only afford four-day school weeks. There are lots of schools that have buildings that are greatly in need of repair. And there are lots and lots of override levies in our school districts just to keep the doors open and the lights on.”

Rusche said he voted for the budget because, “I think it sincerely does make progress.”