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: 0
Bill Description: House Bill 283 appropriates $4,931,900 and 28.00 full-time positions to the Office of the State Treasurer for fiscal year 2024.
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 Office of State Treasurer at $4,655,300, only growing from the base by 7.3% over the last three years. This rate is half the rate of inflation over the same period, demonstrating acceptable growth in the cost to maintain the agency.
(+1)
Does the budget grow government through the addition of new permanent FTPs or through funding unlegislated efforts to create new or expanded entitlement programs? Conversely, does this budget reduce the size of government staff and programs except where compelled by new legislation?
House Bill 283 appropriates a total of $276,600 to add two new full-time positions to the Office of the State Treasurer. The first position is a new Investment Program Specialist, which will cost $175,700 to onboard. This position will accommodate the Treasurer’s investment portfolio, which has quadrupled over the last decade. The second position is a new Banking Specialist to handle general banking activities within the Treasurer’s Office. This position will cost $100,900 to onboard.
Adding these new full-time positions will grow the size of the agency, ongoing spending, and the overall size of government.
(-1)
