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: (-2)
Bill Description: Senate Bill 1130 appropriates $116,181,200 and 249.80 full-time positions to the Military Division for fiscal year 2026.
Analyst note: This legislation includes $8.6 million for upgrading the equipment for hazmat response teams throughout the state. This equipment is used a lot, as evidenced by the number of deficiency warrants for hazmat cleanup over the years. Being that hazmat response is a duty peculiar to the state, our team did not view this as a wasteful expenditure.
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 the Military Division at $107,064,100, growing it from the base by 32.3% in the last three years. This rate is about 19 points faster than what would be prescribed by inflationary pressures and growth.
(-1)
Does this budget contain hidden fund transfers or supplemental expenditures that work to enact new policy or are not valid emergency expenditures? Conversely, are fund transfers only made to stabilization funds or are supplemental requests only made in the interest of resolving valid fiscal emergencies?
There are two objectionable supplemental appropriations included in this budget.
The first item is for $540,000 in one-time funds to help resolve a backlog in radio and computer installations for Idaho State Police fleet vehicles, a responsibility dedicated to the Military Division to execute. This request should not be a supplemental, however, because this backlog was not unforeseen. ISP had a large appropriation of $3.7 million to add “49 fully equipped SUV’s” to its fleet in the 2023 fiscal year — two years ago. A backlog could have been foreseen prior to the FY 2025 budget process. Therefore, this supplemental appropriation should have been requested in the appropriate fiscal year, rather than as a supplemental for FY 2025.
Similarly, the division is asking for $759,200 in IT hardware replacement items as an FY 2025 supplemental request. This was also not an unforeseen expense since these funds merely modernize those systems, support Microsoft product subscriptions, and facilitate network changes. These are also not emergency expenditures.
Supplemental requests are also known as mid-year adjustments. They are dangerous spending gimmicks because they hide the true growth of the budget. This is because growth is generally measured by comparing original appropriations between years, which ignores supplementals. Hence, it is important to use supplements only for fiscal emergencies. The requests featured in Senate Bill 1130 would effectively hide $1.3 million in new spending.
(-1)
