The Idaho Spending Index serves to provide a fiscally conservative perspective on state budgeting while providing an unbiased measurement of how Idaho lawmakers apply these values to their voting behavior on appropriations bills. Each bill is analyzed within the context of the metrics below. They receive one (+1) point for each metric that is satisfied by freedom-focused policymaking and lose one (-1) point for each instance in which the inverse is true. The sum of these points composes the score for the bill.

Analyst: Niklas Kleinworth

Rating: +1

Bill Description: Senate Bill 1116 provides a supplemental appropriation of $41,000 to the State Historical Society for fiscal year 2023.

Does this budget contain hidden fund transfers or supplemental expenditures that work to enact new policy or are not valid emergency expenditures? Conversely, are fund transfers only made to stabilization funds or are supplemental requests only made in the interest of resolving valid fiscal emergencies?

Senate Bill 1116 provides for a supplemental of $41,000 to cover a 38% increase in rent for the State Records Center warehouse. The agency noted that negotiations for the lease were in progress during the budget-making process in 2022, resulting in the shortfall. The Legislature appropriated $120,400 for the annual lease obligation for the building in the 2023 fiscal year, but the actual cost of the rent was $161,400.

Mean rent increases in Boise were less than half of the increase imposed on the Idaho State Historical Society by the real estate company — Bennett Kendall Center LLC. This is truly an unexpected expense incurred by the Idaho State Historical Society.

(+1)