Idaho’s JFAC voted to cut most state agency budgets by an additional 1% this year and 2% next year. Medicaid, public schools, prisons and state police were shielded.
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho lawmakers voted Friday to further cut state agency budgets, as the legislature works to balance its budget.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee approved an additional 1% reduction for most state agencies for the current fiscal year and 2% for fiscal year 2027. The new cuts are on top of Gov. Brad Little’s existing 3% holdback in August, bringing total reductions to 4% and 5%, respectively.
Medicaid, K-12 public education, the Department of Correction and Idaho State Police were shielded from the new cuts. JFAC Co-Chair Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, told KTVB those budgets are already stretched thin and cutting corrections staff or state troopers would create public safety risks.
“It’s a tough time, no doubt about it, because anytime you’re cutting back on people’s benefits, people are not happy,” Grow said.
Grow said Idaho’s budget surplus has dropped from $430 million the end of the last legislative session to roughly $30 million currently.
The 1% cut for fiscal year 2026 is expected to add just under $15 million back to the bottom line. The 2% cut for fiscal year 2027 would add just under $30 million, Grow said.
Grow said the reductions are driven in response to policy changes over the last year, and uncertainty. He said earlier this week the legislature passed a tax conformity bill that carries an additional cost to the budget. That bill, which conforms Idaho’s tax code to recent federal changes, benefits lower- and middle-income taxpayers through deductions on overtime, tips, loan interest and Social Security taxation for seniors.
“My objective here is to be conservative enough that by making small cuts now, we can avoid larger cuts later,” Grow said.
Not all lawmakers agree the cuts are necessary and several of them pushed back on them in the budget meeting.
Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, criticized the sudden cuts as diminishing the work of JFAC working groups trying to find ways to balance the judgement with the least amount of impact to Idahoans.
“Why would we do that? Why would we ignore the work this Committee has done? That approach is not precision. It’s taking a chainsaw to the budget,” Cook said in the meeting.
Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, told KTVB the budget crisis is self-inflicted, pointing to roughly $450 million in tax cuts passed last session that she said crashed the state’s revenue. As well as the Parental Choice Tax Credit program that sets aside $50 million annually.
“This happened because last session this legislature voted to cut the revenue too hard,” Wintrow said. “And instead of admitting a mistake, we’re going to create structural balance on the backs of folks with disabilities, working families. And that’s not right.”
She went on to add, “We backed into a revenue number with the list of things we wanted, instead of really looking and taking care of what is needed to provide services and the basics for our citizens.” And that, “It’s Groundhog Day here in the Idaho legislature, again, we just keep repeating the same thing over and over.”
State agencies will now recommend where those cuts should fall and bring their proposals back to JFAC for review in the coming weeks.
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