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: Senate Bill 1140 transfers $1,299,000 from capital outlay to operations within the Department of Corrections Alternative Placement for fiscal year 2023.

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?

This supplemental makes a transfer from capital outlay to operations within the budget for the Department of Corrections, Alternative Placement. The budget motion notes that there was a reduction to the base budget for the agency to reflect the fact that the lease for their building was paid off in the 2022 fiscal year. However, all the funds were pulled from operating expenditures, and $1.3 million should have come from capital outlay. Since this is merely a correction to the budget for the 2023 fiscal year, this legislation is rated neutrally.

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