BOISE — In just the second week of this year’s Idaho legislative session, the state budget-writing committee on Tuesday, for the first time, passed maintenance budgets for most of the state’s government agencies.
The three Democrats on the joint committee had concerns about the new process and voted against every budget.
“I do not believe this is a good way to do budgets,” Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, said Tuesday.
The maintenance budgets, which are enough to “keep the lights on” but don’t include new requests, totaled around $12.1 billion across all funding sources, which includes $5.1 billion in general funds. The budgets also didn’t include some nondiscretionary funds for public schools and Medicaid.
The co-chairpersons of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) had said ahead of the session that the committee would be changing the budget bill process. Instead of each agency budget coming out of the committee with all the line-item requests and baseline costs considered at once, the committee on Tuesday passed what it’s calling maintenance budgets.
Committee co-chairperson Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, called the day “historic” ahead of the Tuesday morning meeting.
The budgets included the governor’s recommended inflationary adjustments on the previous year’s expenses while removing one-time expenditures. They also had a placeholder 1% increase in employee compensation — the committee leaders said those numbers would be updated when the Change in Employee Compensation Committee makes its recommendation.
The 10 budget bills passed Tuesday were under broad categories and included several divisions underneath each category. There was no appropriation included in any of the budgets for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Indirect Support Services division, because it is being withheld until the department provides a corrective action plan on audit findings, as previously reported.
Ward-Engelking had a number of concerns about the process, including that she received the budgets Friday and didn’t feel like she had enough time to review them and that she noticed inconsistencies.
For instance, under the General Government Statewide Maintenance Budget, there are 18 divisions that include the Military Division, Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, and Commission on the Arts.
“It’s a smattering of groupings,” she said.
She said in looking at them, sometimes the budgets seem to take the governor’s recommendation, such as the expected change in the cost to provide benefits to employees, but not others, such as the change in employee compensation.
The expected change in costs in providing benefits stems from a new contract the state has signed with a different insurance provider. However, there is ongoing litigation from the previous provider over the new contract.
Ward-Engelking thought it was too early to reduce the appropriation for benefits.
She also sees the budgets as more of a cut than a “maintenance.” Her concern has been that later on, there may not be as much motivation to re-open budgets to add the agency requests or make larger adjustments as needed.
Co-chairperson Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, and Horman addressed some of her concerns Tuesday, saying that they will be required to consider the agency requests and replacement items, and they are confident in their new process.
Process questions
There’s disagreement around how exactly budgets will be reopened to consider new items.
Typically, this is done by unanimous consent of the members, Grow said. But if one member objects, there must be a vote taken on whether or not to open the budget back up.
Horman and Grow said they believe only a simple majority is needed to reopen a budget. But Horman noted that there is disagreement among the different chambers. She said the House clerk interprets existing rules and customs to mean that the committee can use a simple majority.
However, the Senate secretary thinks the rules require a two-thirds majority to open a budget again.
JFAC doesn’t have its own adopted rules for the session, so it follows the state’s Joint Rules of the Senate and House of Representatives. If there aren’t applicable joint rules, then Senate rules apply, and finally parliamentary practice and procedure as set forth in Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure.
Ward-Engelking, who has served on JFAC for eight years, said she met with Senate leaders and parliamentarians and feels confident there is a two-thirds majority needed. She and Sen. Rick Just, D-Boise, expressed concerns that budgets could get stalled because members don’t want to add to them.
Grow said he doesn’t think it will be an issue to use unanimous consent.
“We’re hopeful that our JFAC members will be respectful,” Grow said.
Hiccups
Tuesday’s hearing included a few last-minute fixes to the language in the budget bills being approved.
Legislative Services Office Deputy Division Manager Jared Tatro caught a mistake in the appropriation language that would have referenced the previous fiscal year’s salary schedule for teachers instead of the one that becomes effective July 1.
Tatro found and corrected the mistake before lawmakers approved the change.
Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, noted that the appropriation language for the Department of Commerce, which was included in the Economic Development budget, still referenced the dates from the prior fiscal year; this was also changed before a vote took place.
Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg, noticed that a pre-written motion to pass the Judicial Branch’s budget had included a cap on full-time equivalent positions, but didn’t include that in her verbal motion because the courts don’t have a cap on FTE positions, she said when questioned about why her motion didn’t include the cap.
There was also a date correction in the appropriation language for the Office of the Treasurer, under the Constitutional Officers budget.
The committee will start hearing agency presentations on Wednesday, which will also look different from past years. Instead of agency heads giving long presentations about their department and requests, a budget analyst will give an overview of the requests. The department directors will then stand for questions from the committee.
Horman said she hopes the changes result in “more of a discussion than a lecture.”
Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on X @EyeOnBoiseGuido.