Week 3 & 4

Doing a lot, accomplishing nothing.

“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” Our Founders had numerous grievances stated in our Declaration of Independence. This particular grievance has come to mind as leadership meets behind closed doors, working to exhaust legislatures and compel them to comply with their desired approach to our budget process.

Let’s back up to October 30th when a email was sent to all legislators sharing the new Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) budget process changes.

The Email:

As co-chairs of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee, we want to let you know that there will be some changes to the JFAC processes during the 2024 session.

• GOING DIGITAL. You won’t see JFAC members carrying 800-page binders anymore because we are going digital. As a pilot project, JFAC members will utilize tablets with an electronic “pencil” that will give us access to everything that was in the binder and significantly more informationfor our budget deliberations.

• SHORTER BUDGET HEARINGS. With access to far more information digitally, the hearing process will beshortened. JFAC will still meet for approximately threehours each morning, but only half of that time will be for hearings. The other half will allow time for members to do the actual work of crafting budgets. Currently, because the meeting schedules of the House and Senate are not aligned, members must gather very early in the morning, over the lunch hour or into the late afternoon or evening if they want to work with members from the other chamber. The very point of a “joint” committee is to encourage collaborative work on budgets. Shorter hearings will also enable members to miss fewer meetings and votes in JFAC as it will allow members time to present policy bills in morning committees.

• IMPROVED BUDGET WEBSITE. To support these changes, the LSO staff has worked diligently over the summer to upgrade the budget website found here. You will now find links to TransparentIdaho.gov, audit results and federal funding, in addition to all the information that was there during the 2023 session.

a. TransparentIdaho.gov links will allow all members to see greater detail on every agency’s expenditures, from money spent on food and drinks to personnel costs and everything in between, and how much of the current budget has been expended.

b. Audit. We added accountability language to each agency’s appropriation bills during the 2023 session to reinforce that agencies must follow the law in their expenditures. The role of audits will now be elevated in the budget process, with all members having easy access to which agencies have audit findings and which ones remain uncorrected. Elevating the role of audits will help JFAC members hold agencies accountable for following the law by adjusting their budgets as necessary for uncorrected audit findings. (For your information, an audit finding generally means there is a concern with an agency’s internal fiscal controls and/or operations indicating they are out of compliance with governmental accounting standards.) In response to these occasional findings, agencies must submit a “corrective action plan” to bring them into compliance. Greater visibility andincorporation of audit findings into the budget process will help JFAC members ensure the highest levels of integrity are being applied when handling taxpayer funds.

c. Federal. As you may know, billions of dollars flow from the federal government into Idaho budgets. This year, we will include a listing of those funds. In future years, we will make this tab even more robust.

• SPENDING LIMITS. The Governor and Legislature project revenues for each fiscal year at the beginning of each session. Additionally, the Governor sometimes places limits on agency budget requests (for this year it is a 3% increase on the General Fund). JFAC will also now placepercentage limits on overall appropriations, which is the starting point for all agency spending. This will allow room in the budget for legislative priorities as bills are approved by the policy committees that have fiscal impacts.

• MAINTENANCE. The Constitution requires the Legislature to produce a balanced budget each year (Article VII, Section 11). JFAC is required by law to consider agency requests (submitted on Sept 1, see here) and the Governor’s Recommendation. The Legislative Budget Book will now also include information on a “maintenance of current operations budget” for each agency. Requests for replacement items, line items, and Governor’s Initiativeswill all still be evaluated and included, or not, in our usual fashion.

• SET BUDGETS EARLIER IN SESSION. Historically, JFAC has listened to six weeks of budget presentations, then spent three weeks setting the budgets, and another twoweeks getting them to the floors for debate. Budget settings will now take place in closer proximity to budget hearings. We are hopeful that this will allow us to have shorter legislative sessions and avoid flooding the floors with budget bills at the very end of each session.

One additional change that will be previewed at the JFAC Fall Interim Meeting Nov 8-10 is to conduct reviews of base budgets. During a legislative session, there is limited time to review and discuss each agency’s funding. Moving forward, JFAC will include time at our routine spring and fall meetings to conduct base budget reviews. Details about how this process will work are  being developed.

The voting procedures agreed upon for the 2023 session will remain in place.

Additionally, supplemental requests will generally be considered only after an agency has had its budget hearing.

Let's fast forward to January 16th when JFAC passed the ten maintenance bills, marking the beginning of a shift. Suddenly, the process wasn't well-received by Democrats, some Republicans, and even leadership. The question arises: Why now? Why didn't we protest the process back in October when we were already aware of the impending changes? Many of us asked these questions, but received very little clarification. I can only offer my own opinion. Is it because we can now vote on the maintenance bills to keep Idaho moving forward, while separately voting on the line items proposed by the Governor that would expand our budget? Is it because of the newfound transparency that allows constituents to hold their legislators accountable? Or is it because the Governor's Launch program is not part of the maintenance bills but a separate line item that could potentially be voted down? Only God and those who have been in these meetings will ever truly know.

Today, on February 1st, the bills have finally reached the Senate and House floors for their first reading and subsequent voting. As I write this newsletter and research the bill numbers, I've noticed that one bill is missing—the budget for the legislature. I'm not sure why it's missing, but I'm confident we'll find out soon. You can click on each bill number to read the appropriation bill. H457, H458, H459, H460, S1266, S1267, S1268, S1269, S1270. Also Click on THIS LINK to take deeper dive into the budget line item. Photo to help you navigate.

"So, you may ask, what else has taken place in weeks 3 and 4? A lot of rules and presentations, gubernatorial appointments, but very few bills on the Senate side. The gubernatorial appointments have been particularly interesting, with the Idaho Freedom Caucus shedding some light on the Governor's picks. Click HERE to read IFC Substack

I had the privilege to visit Israeli Consul General Marco Sermoneta. Who loves Idaho and our support we give to Israel.

With his presence it also brought out protestors. And I must add the did it peaceably and handed me information on their protest.

I also had a few other visitors!!!

And to wrap up these last two day with my song pick. If I could only be Fly on the Wall in all these meetings I was not invited to be part of.

Hope to see you all Saturday!