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 715 appropriates $3,827,100 to the Idaho Millennium Fund for fiscal year 2025.
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.)?
The Idaho Millennium Fund is the result of a 1998 legal settlement between tobacco companies and 46 states, including Idaho. Idaho is set to receive $250 million over the following 25 years. The Millennium Fund has a cap of $100 million, sending any excess funds to the Millennium Fund Permanent Endowment Fund.
Appropriations from the Millennium Fund are recommended by the Joint Millennium Fund Committee. The 2025 recommendation provided a focus on Youth Prevention and Cessation programs. This included funding for media campaigns at Idaho Public Television.
It also included intent language that these funds will no longer be used to support Idaho’s Medicaid program.
One detractor from this appropriation is that $406,000 is allocated to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare for Project Filter. This request did not include any intent language governing its use, despite the IDHW misusing the funds to provide spendy sponsorships at Pride Festivals throughout the state. Given the department’s track record for using these funds, appropriating monies for this program without any accountability will likely lead to more wasteful spending.
(-1)
