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: House Bill 306 appropriates $12,060,700 and 7.00 full-time positions to the Public Defense Commission for fiscal year 2024.

House Bill 306 essentially provides a maintenance budget for the Public Defense Commission. There is one line item request for county indigent defense financial assistance disbursements. This line item request maintains a 3.2% increase that was approved in the 2023 fiscal year. There is also a budget adjustment to fund the statewide human resources consolidation.

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 Public Defense Commission at $11,713,500, only growing from the base by 3.9% over the last three years. This rate is much slower than the rate of inflation over the same period, demonstrating modest growth in the cost to maintain the agency.

(+1)