In May of this year, Governor Brad Little’s budget chief told every agency to submit “maintenance-only” budgets. That meant no new General Fund programs, no pay raises outside of the 1% placeholder, and supplementals as a “tool of last resort.”

When agencies submitted their budgets in September, it became clear many of these rules had been broken. The $15.2 billion question is whether the governor will hold these agencies to his own office’s standard or grant them these requests. History teaches us that final budgets rarely deviate much from the requests of the agencies.

The memo promised to keep spending minimal, noting at the time that projections for the state’s bottom line were around $148 million. The administrator’s letter stated, “No General Fund line-item enhancements… will be accepted.” Neither would shifting costs from federal and dedicated funds to the General Fund. Nor would “personnel pay enhancements or changes outside of [statewide Change in Employee Compensation] CEC.” Agencies did not live up to these standards.

Agency requests rose substantially year over year, likely compensating for last year’s minuscule budget cuts rather than actually making do with leaner appropriations. IFF analysis shows General Fund requests rose $446 million (7.9%), or about three times the projected bottom-line margin. Maintenance alone was essentially equivalent to the bottom-line surplus. Further analysis shows “last resort” Fiscal Year 2027 supplementals amounted to around $100 million without accounting for the fire season.

Of this spending, there are several discretionary General Fund items the memo said would not be accepted as a general rule. These include $20 million for a funding-formula “modernization” for public schools with no bill or funding formula proposed. This is simply extra spending on schools. Several agencies ask for full budget restorations, including the Attorney General’s Office, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s mental health services, and community colleges. Medicaid also asks for a $4 million provider rate increase.

Several agencies have asked for agency-specific pay raises for personnel such as appellate defenders, administrative law judges, and Industrial Commission referees, as well as a $6.3 million Idaho State Police pay plan. There are also requests to move some costs onto the General Fund, such as Career Technical Education ($1.9 million). Universities and community colleges also ask for $12.2 million in workload adjustments, which the governor declined to fund last year.

Agencies still have over 100 long-term vacant positions that are included in budget requests for agencies, including employee slots at Labor, Health and Welfare, Corrections, and the Idaho Department of Transportation. Numerous agencies have salary requests that exceed their own forecasts and tens of millions in expired federal spending authority on their books.

In fairness, these are agency requests and not Governor Little’s proposal. Further, the governor can’t directly control the budget submissions of constitutional officers, but he doesn’t have to endorse them when he releases his own budget, either. The memo also says some requests may be able to receive prior approval and be accepted. However, the Division of Financial Management's hard-line position said it “will not accept” such submissions, not that the governor wouldn’t end up including them in his budget.

The question to the governor is whether his budget will hold the agencies accountable. Will it strip the tens of millions in discretionary General Fund Requests? Will it hold General Fund growth within the projected limits? To those who would point to the more recent and higher projections of the state’s bottom line, this is not a license to spend more but rather a chance to send relief back to Idaho taxpayers, whose tax dollars this revenue originated from.

Fiscal conservatism is measured in the budget itself, not the memo. We hope the governor keeps his promise to Idaho taxpayers.