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 1408 appropriates $24,532,700 and 115.00 full-time positions to the Office of the State Controller for fiscal year 2025.

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 confirms the program maintenance budget for the Office of the State Controller of $24,350,000. This growth from the FY 2022 base is nearly 10 percentage points higher than what would be prescribed by inflationary pressures and growth.

(-1)

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?

ANALYST NOTE: This legislation contains one supplemental request for the 2024 fiscal year to cover the adjudication of the remaining claims in the Catastrophic Health Care Fund. The Catastrophic Health Care fund provided financial assistance to indigent patients throughout the state. The program was discontinued in the 2019 fiscal year but some remaining claims are still being adjudicated. This request covers the cost of paying some of the final claims awaiting decisions.

(0)