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 1115 provides a supplemental appropriation of $1,309,400 to the State Appellate Public Defender 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 1115 provides a supplemental appropriation to cover the costs associated with managing four capital cases. Three cases will require the department to hire outside counsel, including two new cases expected before June regarding the trials for Lori Vallow-Daybell and Chad Daybell. The need to hire outside counsel arose from a post-conviction conflict of interest. The original four cases were also not budgeted for in the original appropriation for the 2023 fiscal year because their prosecution was dependent on the United States Supreme Court’s ruling on Shinn v Ramirez (2022).

The nature of these cases was unexpected, making it impossible for the agency to plan for them when crafting their budget request to the governor in September of 2021. These expenses are valid emergency expenditures that constitute an appropriate use of a supplemental appropriation.

(+1)