Making Progress in Idaho State Budgeting

This paper examines Idaho state budgeting decisions for Fiscal Year 2014 and assesses what progress has been made to return to the state’s revenue and spending levels before the hard times in 2009 and 2010 (Kinney 2010; Kinney 2011). After briefly describing Idaho’s population and politics, the report discusses the state’s economic and General Fund revenue contexts for budget decision making. It then analyzes the governor’s budget and the legislature’s appropriations and considers two important potential impacts of these decisions. Progress in Idaho state budgeting continued to be mixed. The state economy generally gained since the recession years although prospects for specific sectors varied. General Fund revenue collections increased regularly since the low point of FY 2010 but were still below the pre-recession amounts. “Progress” differed for the General Fund spending of individual General Fund departments and major programs. While the legislature’s spending shares increased for some functions and programs and decreased for others, we found no major changes in the shares for FY 2014