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 1204 appropriates $123,916,000 to the Public School Administration Division for fiscal year 2024.

This legislation appropriates a true maintenance budget for the Division of Administrators. There are no requests for new line items or supplemental appropriations. Public schools are not subject to a cap on full-time positions.

Is the maintenance budget inappropriate for the needs of the state, the size of the agency, or the inflationary environment of the economy? Conversely, is the maintenance budget appropriate given the needs of the state and economic pressures?

This legislation sets the maintenance budget for the Division of Administrators at $123,916,000, growing from the base by 21.3% in the last three years. This rate is 50% greater than what would be prescribed by inflationary pressures and growth.

(-1)