The big issues in Boise: 2024 Idaho Legislative session starts Monday

BOISE — Idaho lawmakers will return to the Statehouse in Boise on Monday and they’ll be addressing some familiar issues.

In anticipation for the 2024 session, the Tribune talked to legislators from across the state about what they expect and what they hope to accomplish.

Although each legislator had their own goals and priorities, a number of topics kept coming up: school facilities, school choice and abortion.

Many of those interviewed agreed that without the influx of federal pandemic relief funding and the recent big boosts to education and property tax relief, the state won’t be working with the large budget surpluses that it’s had the last couple of years.

There have also been brewing economic worries since last year.

“I’m concerned we will have a recession,” said Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, who’s co-chairperson of the budget-writing Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. “It keeps getting postponed, obviously, but the economy continues to cycle as it always does and we will have a recession sometime.”

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the state will have to make some “difficult decisions” this year because the budget will likely be much tighter.

“We’re in a tighter year this year,” Rubel said. “We’re coming on the heels of many, many years of massive income tax cuts, and things have built up.”

Below are some of the top issues lawmakers expect to see.

SCHOOL FACILITIES

Rubel and others said a top priority will be to address the large backlog of school facility maintenance.

Lawmakers heard about this issue in early 2022 when the Office of Performance Evaluations released a report outlining an estimated $850 million backlog of school facility maintenance needed to get the state’s school in “good condition.”

Rubel said the backlog could now be in excess of a billion dollars.

The Legislature in a 2022 interim session earmarked $330 million for public schools, which was then appropriated in 2023. This included raises for teachers and classified staff, but not building maintenance.

There was a property tax bill passed last year that included money for school districts to pay levies and bonds.

Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, said she wants to see more money put in that fund for schools to bond against and address more of the backlog. She noted the 2005 Supreme Court decision that found the state’s funding for educational facilities was inadequate.

“(School facilities maintenance) really is a state function and a government function because it’s required under the constitution,” she said.

McCann said this effort will also have the additional benefit of added tax relief.

Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said he’s also going to propose a tax bill that would further address public school buildings.

“I don’t know if it will gain traction or not,” Skaug said. “... There’s always a need for better facilities for public schools but there is a finite amount of money that our taxpayers can put out.”

Sen. Julie VanOrden, R-Pingree, is on JFAC and will be working on the education budget this year. She said school facilities will be one of the front-and-center issues this year.

“I feel like it’s a huge thing that we need to address,” VanOrden said. “We’ve tried to address it in bits and pieces in the past but having a full focus on it this year I think will be good.”

SCHOOL CHOICE

ESA and voucher proposals

The idea of school choice, or some government funds going toward families for private school tuition or homeschooling, picked up steam in 2023 and doesn’t appear to be slowing down in 2024.

Grow said he’s working on some proposals to accomplish this. He said he has consistently heard that it’s something his constituents want.

He said after the pandemic, a number of families pulled their children from public schools.

“A lot of folks are saying, ‘Hey, I’m having to double pay, I pay my taxes for the public ed,’ that they’re now opting out of and going to alternative choices, so they’re looking for some kind of relief,” Grow said.

Last year, proposals to create educational savings accounts, or ESAs, that could be used toward private school tuition were rejected. Other proposals to add private school tuition to an existing Empowering Parents grant program, which can go toward educational expenses for Idaho families, also never moved forward.

Grow said there will be some similarities to these past proposals in this year’s draft legislation. At the time of the interview, he offered no further details.

VanOrden, who works on the education budget on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee, said she’s hearing the school choice conversation turning toward using tax credits.

Prominent Democrats in the Legislature — Rubel, Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow and Assistant Minority Leader Sen. James Ruchti — said that opposing such legislation was a top focus.

“My No. 1 priority, bar none, is defeating any voucher proposal,” said Ruchti, D-Pocatello. “If I can only come away from the session having accomplished one thing, it would be preserving the public education system that we have.”

Democrats in the Legislature are not the only ones opposed to the concept of allowing public funds to go toward private schooling. Last session, a proposed large, universal ESA program was rejected in a 12-23 vote after two hours of debate on the Senate floor.

A narrower proposal to add private tuition to Empowering Parents passed in the Senate 19-15 but died in the House. Other proposals were introduced but never had a hearing.

McCann said she’s open to seeing proposals this year, but has opposed this type of legislation in the past because these programs could get expensive and there’s no accountability required.

“If $45 million is going to a new program and new system of education, then it is pulling because that’s money that could go into the fund for lowering bonds and levies or back to lowering our property tax again,” McCann said. “So if we’re starting a whole new system, that to me is not being very fiscally responsible.”

Rep. Julie Yamamoto, R-Caldwell, is chairperson of the Education Committee, and said in October at a College of Idaho policy forum that she understands where voucher supports are coming from, but has concerns about those programs siphoning money from public schools.

“I would guess that there isn’t anyone sitting here today who doesn’t agree with that idea, that we believe education should fit the student,” Yamamoto said at the time. “Where we start parting company is where you start talking about who pays for that.”

Wintrow pointed to other states that have implemented ESAs, such as Arizona, and how their costs have since skyrocketed, the Arizona Capitol Times reported.

“It’s not in the best interest of the state,” Wintrow said.

Rubel said sending taxpayer funds to education systems that don’t have to report on how the money is being used or student achievement is a “pandora’s box.” She said the goal is to “play defense” against these types of proposals.

ABORTION AND WOMEN’S HEALTH

Idaho has three abortion bans on the books, including a felony ban on performing almost all abortions that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.

Within these laws, there is disagreement about what, if any, exceptions should be available and under what circumstances — this discussion is likely to continue in 2024.

McCann said creating an exemption to protect the health of the mother is one of her top priorities, despite the political difficulty of the topic. She said if she can’t successfully get it introduced this year, she’ll keep working with anti-abortion groups on it to come to a compromise.

“I’m a strong pro-life believer but also I believe that there needs to be exemptions,” McCann said.

The felony abortion ban allows the procedure to prevent the death of the mother, but there is no exemption for protecting health or future fertility. A bill last year was introduced with language that would have added a health exemption but it was removed and another version without the health language was introduced and passed.

McCann said the state’s medical community is very concerned about the law and the prospect of facing felony imprisonment for providing emergency abortions.

“We are getting to be up against a real crisis and that is doctors are leaving our state,” McCann said.

Wintrow thinks the problem of doctors leaving the state needs more changes. She said the criminal penalty should be removed.

She also highlighted that there are severe limitations for the current exemptions for rape and incest. The exemption only applies to cases in the first trimester and with a police report, which may be difficult to obtain, she said. Wintrow also noted that many rape and incest victims do not report to the police.

There’s also the civil penalty on the books that would still allow family members of the fetus to sue abortion providers for a minimum of $20,000.

“I don’t know one person that’s gotten their permission slip from a physician to go get their abortion in this state. Who’s performing them?” Wintrow said. “So even though you say it, if it can’t functionally, practically happen, it’s not true ... It is legitimately not an exception.”

In an effort to protect maternal health all around, Wintrow also wants to reestablish the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which the Legislature allowed to expire last year. Rubel also said reinstating this committee was one of her priorities.

The last report from the committee found Idaho has a high rate of pregnancy-related deaths, many of which were deemed preventable, Boise State Public Radio reported.

Wintrow also wants to increase postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers and their infants from 60 days to 12 months as well as raise the income threshold for eligibility so more people would have access to coverage.

“If we really care about kids and moms, let’s make sure they get a good start, and they have healthy maternal care as well as post delivery,” Wintrow.

OTHER ISSUES

Every lawmaker has their own projects that they will try to introduce as well. Other topics that were discussed included adding funding to the state’s Workforce Housing Fund. The Legislature allocated $50 million to the fund in 2022, marking the first state investment in affordable housing.

“We know that the affordable housing issue is one of the main priorities of the people in the state, you can’t find a place that’s affordable to live,” Wintrow said. “And it’s driving out people are teachers and letter carriers and middle-class folks.”

She did say given discussion she’s heard about decreased revenue and other lawmaker’s priorities, that her colleagues across the aisle may not share this priority.

“My sense is that it’s going to be a fight,” she said.

Many of those interviewed indicated other hot-button issues from last session would return, such as materials deemed harmful in libraries, drag shows and issues around transgender health care.

“They’ll be back,” Rubel said of these types of issues. “And I think with the looming closed Republican primary, they may be able to successfully put a lot of pressure to vote for these bills, even if they know they’re terrible bills.”

Grow, as co-chairperson of JFAC, said there will be some process changes to the budget-writing process. He and co-chairperson Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, told reporters at a news conference Thursday that budget work would begin earlier in the session than in the past, which will hopefully move bills out of committee to the floor more quickly.

Horman said another change this year will be passing “maintenance bills” early on in the session, which would just be the basics needed to keep agencies and programs running without any changes. Line item budget requests and supplemental requests would then be included in a separate budget passed later on.

Grow and Horman said they’re also looking into setting percentage spending limits on budgets, meaning agencies wouldn’t be able to increase their budget by a certain percentage. The two leaders haven’t decided on a limit yet.

“We’ve seen historic amounts of money coming into the state and we all know that’s not sustainable,” Horman said. “It’s not a trend that’s going to maintain. … we’re making sure we’re matching the size of government to the revenue we have over time.”

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.

On their agenda

Besides the big issues headlining this year’s Idaho Legislature, here are some other concerns mentioned by lawmakers heading into the session.

LORI MCCANN (R): Provide funding for school districts to pay student teachers and incentives for veterinarians to pursue large-animal medicine.

ILANA RUBEL (D): Remove restrictions on the state naloxone distribution program and regulate use of deep fakes in political campaigns.

JAMES RUCHTI (D): Protecting the independence of the Judicial Council and process for selecting judges, and child care access.

BRUCE SKAUG (R): Creating mandatory minimums for fentanyl trafficking, banning AI generated child porn, prohibiting public funds for being used for transgender procedures, and reducing time allowed for collecting unemployment benefits.

JULIE VANORDEN (R): Making adoption easier, both for those looking to adopt and those looking to put babies up for adoption.

MELISSA WINTROW (D): Improving child care access, Medicaid reimbursement rate for direct care workers, improving contraceptive access, and allowing crisis holds for those with degenerative brain disorders such as Huntington’s or Alzheimer’s.