Eye on Boise: Budget calls for 5.4% increase

Betsy Russell’s Sunday Eye on Boise column:

The Legislature’s joint budget committee finished setting state agency budgets on Friday, appropriating more than $3.4 billion for next year, a 5.4 percent increase from this year’s budget.

The numbers aren’t final, as a number of “trailer” appropriation bills still will need to be passed in committee to reflect the fiscal impact of various pieces of legislation that still are working their way through one house or another. (Those funding bills are so named because they “trail” behind the bills that prompt them.) But the timing puts the Legislature on track for its hoped-for March 24 adjournment date.

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said, “Overall, I think the budget committee worked really hard at it, going through the numbers with a fine-toothed comb and recognizing that we still have holes in places after the recession, and I think we methodically took a look at those and tried to plug those back in when it was needed.” More here.