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 364 is a trailer appropriation for House Bill 267 that transfers $50 million to the Idaho Career Ready Students Fund and the Division of Career and Technical Education.

House Bill 364 is a trailer appropriation for House Bill 267, appropriating $50 million to establish the Idaho Career Ready Students Program. $45 million will be deposited into the Idaho Career Ready Students Program Fund and $5 million to the Division of Career and Technical Education. This program was rated negatively on the Idaho Education Index due to its expansion of government and the education bureaucracy and its provision of additional funding to the system.

Does this budget incur any wasteful spending among discretionary funds, including new line items? Conversely, does this budget contain any provisions that serve to reduce spending where possible (i.e. base reductions, debt reconciliation, etc.)? 

This appropriation is consistent with the fiscal note accompanying House Bill 267 and makes the appropriations effective immediately. There is no evidence of wastefulness in this appropriation.

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