Sens. Janie Ward-Engelking and Melissa Wintrow: Preventable and predictable, Idaho’s budget crisis impacts all of us

By Sens. Janie Ward-Engelking and Melissa Wintrow

Transparency and accountability are hallmarks of healthy budgeting. So, let’s be transparent. Let’s be accountable.

Everyone already knows how we got into our current budget crisis: Republican lawmakers adopted unrealistic revenue projections to accommodate tax giveaways and an unpopular school voucher scheme, resulting in $450 million in revenue reductions that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. That was preventable.

When revenues fell short, the governor-imposed across-the-board reductions, followed by 3% temporary holdbacks, and then permanent cuts to every agency. That was predictable.

Now, Idaho faces a $555 million fiscal cliff due to the massive gap between revenue and needed services.

The result is chaos in health care, stress on public safety, and strain across the very services that sustain Idaho families.

As Idaho grows and aspires to move forward, our GOP-controlled legislature keeps pulling us backward by enacting policies that starve the very services that allow communities to thrive. Health care, public safety, public schools, and transportation form the backbone of a strong Idaho. Yet instead of building on success, they are cutting to the bone.

At the Legislature’s budget committee interim meeting, which has just concluded, we saw what happens when growth and responsibility diverge. Budget analysts confirmed that, when adjusted for population growth and inflation, Idaho’s budget has remained relatively flat over the last two decades. That means we are serving more people with fewer resources. Unlike successful businesses that evolve to meet demand, the state has drifted from true conservative stewardship toward extremism, shrinking government at the expense of governing well.

Budget analysts stepped to the podium carrying another piece of grim news. Behind every graph was a real-world implication: an elderly woman losing her caregiver, a family unable to afford home health support for a child with a disability, a police officer forced to respond to another preventable mental health crisis, more local bonds and levies needed to keep our schools running, and critical road and bridge projects put on hold. The weight in the room was palpable.

The pain is most visible in health care. Rural hospitals and clinics are struggling to stay open, and home care providers are leaving the workforce. Idaho has already lost over a third of its OB-GYN physicians, leaving families without local maternity care. These cuts make it even harder to keep people healthy, working, and living independently.

The Department of Corrections is facing cuts that weaken reentry programs that reduce recidivism and improve public safety. When those programs are eliminated, the costs are passed back to local taxpayers and law enforcement. Even our newly created statewide public defender system, built to meet constitutional obligations after years of litigation, faces reductions that risk undoing hard-won progress.

Idaho sits on more than a billion dollars in rainy-day reserve funds. Yet we are cutting the very programs that keep people safe and healthy. We are not just facing a rainy day; we are standing in a storm of our own making. The Legislature seeded the clouds, and everyday Idahoans are weathering the downpour.

Behind every percentage point lies a ripple effect that touches real people: a patient losing home health care, a teacher managing an overcrowded classroom, a small-town clinic closing its doors. Real conservative values are about planning, taking responsibility and investing wisely. Idaho can no longer afford to treat its people as a line item to be cut. It’s not too late to change course, to put responsibility ahead of ideology and ensure our state’s growth is matched by leadership that protects the foundations of our communities.

Idaho Sens. Janie Ward-Engelking and Melissa Wintrow are Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee members.