Week Nine | Idaho State Legislature
March 6 - 10, 2023
In the ninth week of the Sixty-Seventh Idaho Legislature’s First Regular Session, both the House and Senate began holding two floor sessions a day to work through their lengthy calendars. The schedule is arranged to take up bills from their chamber before taking up bills crossing the rotunda. We continue to see the Senate move much slower than the House as they take up contentious social issue bills. Both chambers have made significant progress this week. Floor sessions are increasingly longer, which will likely not change until the end of the session. Many committees still have several bills needing a hearing, and with two floor sessions a day, this has become more challenging for Chairmen to get through their packed agendas.
On March 4, 2023, former Governor Phil Batt passed away on his 96th birthday. His services were held this week as he was honored and laid in state from Thursday morning through Friday. The capitol also took time this week to honor the passing of Former Representative Del Raybould, who passed away on March 2, 2023. The capitol was especially humbling this week as we celebrated the legacy of these great statesmen and past leaders.
The Senate Commerce and Human Resources Committee finally held a hearing on HB 24 – Idaho Launch Program. This hearing was full of testimony for and against the bill. After hearing from as many interested parties as possible under a constrained time limit, the committee members debated and ultimately sent HB 24 to the amending order. At the same time, they await SB 1151, the trailer bill that adds several new components, including private match funding, limits to funding uses, and more legislative oversight to the policy to help it pass the Senate. We expect a hearing on SB 1151 on Tuesday next week.
JFAC continued to work through their list of agency budgets this week, with Medicaid and higher education being the most contentious but still passing out of committee. We continue to see these budgets working through the floors of the House and Senate with minimal debate as the line items for programs have nearly all been stripped from the budgets by the co-chairs. The few items still included have taken a herculean effort to remain whole.
Subsequently, the JFAC Co-Chairs have amassed over $2.4 billion in general funds that were not included in budgets as they traditionally have in years past. This influx of funds has created the most significant funding issue in state history. According to the JFAC Co-Chairs, they will be meeting Monday morning to work through how to appropriate the billions in cash transfers. Interestingly, the rest of the JFAC committee members are not invited to the meeting. The negotiations and process for moving forward will surely create fireworks as this comes to a head next week. With only K-12 education budgets, as well as any commitments from pending legislation left, the last thing for JFAC to do this year is distribute a $2.4 billion dollar hostage in a way that can pass the House and Senate floors.
Speaker Moyle, Chairman Monks, Ricks, and Grow introduced the new jointly crafted property tax bill this week. HB 292 replaces all other property tax bills and is now the only property tax bill in review by legislators. The bill aims to provide hundreds of millions in property tax “relief” over the next three years through various pass-throughs and shifts. It is funded from various sources in the state and local allocations. While schools receive a payment from the state, they are forced to cut budgets and limit levies and bonds, and the other local government budgets would take yet another loss. This bill also impacts school district elections, the circuit breaker, the sales tax funded “tax relief fund” which is already empty, and more with twenty (20) pages of tax shifts, new reporting and accountability measures, and property tax “cuts." While it’s a new bill, the tactics and methods of cutting local budgets and using other taxes to fund property tax “relief” are all too familiar.
To see progress on bills, budgets, and rules we are monitoring on our Bill Tracker.