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.
Rating: (-1)
Bill Description: House Bill 417 is an enhancement of $1,679,800 for the Community Colleges for fiscal year 2026. This legislation appropriates a total of $69,219,700 to the agency.
Faculty and staff at colleges and universities are not subject to the FTP caps set by the Legislature. Therefore, FTP caps are not contemplated in this rating or the corresponding legislation.
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.)?
Analyst note: This legislation grants the community colleges the full value of the enrollment workload adjustment (EWA) appropriation. There is an exception for North Idaho College, which would have seen a negative EWA. Because of a recent controversy surrounding its accreditation and its increasing enrollment, the Legislature opted to hold NIC harmless for its EWA loss. The institutions will receive the following EWA appropriation for fiscal year 2026 in this legislation:
Is the continuation or growth in ongoing spending, if any, inappropriate for the changes in circumstances, scope of the agency, or current economic environment? Conversely, is the continuation or growth in ongoing spending appropriate given any change in circumstances or economic pressures?
This legislation funds ongoing spending for Community Colleges at $69,219,700, growing from the base by 34.1% in the last three years. This rate is 20 points faster than what would be prescribed by inflationary pressures and growth.
Because of the accelerated growth in this budget the last three years, a truly fiscally responsible enhancement budget for FY2026 would reverse the growth with a negative appropriation — a reduction to the base budget.
(-1)
