BOISE, Idaho — In terms of responsibilities at the Statehouse, Idaho’s budgeting committee is at the top of the list. But a new process heading into the session had some worries. Now, the dust has settled on the 2024 session.
“I am really excited about what happened,” said Idaho Falls Rep. Wendy Horman
Rep. Horman Co-Chairs the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee with Eagle Senator Scott Grow. Chair Horman believes the new process worked.
“We had better transparency than we've ever had before. Between our website and separating the base budgets from the growth budgets we really have put into place a process where it's a building block where we have greater transparency and accountability. Now, compliance with how the money is supposed to be spent. But in the summer, we'll be looking at what's in the base,” Horman said.
As a part of the new process, lawmakers will be digging into base budgets to make sure money is being spent correctly and effectively.
“We've given you money in the past for X. Did you do X? And did you get outcome Y that you said you would? And so we passed some legislation this year that will create a new division in so called legislative impact reviews. So we'll be moving in the direction of performance based budgeting,” Horman said.
There were critics of the process who worried the process wasn’t fully cooked or operational.
So, did the critics have a point?
“In my opinion, no. We didn't lose a single budget on the House floor this year. You know, historically it's been the House that's had trouble passing budgets. This year it was the Senate and they did lose a couple of budgets. We almost did in the House, but we didn't. So I think a lot of the fears that, were existed at the beginning of session, I hope, have been put to rest, that this is an authentic process to increase transparency and accountability for taxpayer funds. That's what we've done. And we're going to continue to do more of it,” Horman said.
Late in the session in relation to the ITD budget, which included language to end a sale of the ITD Boise campus, there was a major JFAC question. Was the budgeting committee setting policy in an inappropriate way?
“Earlier this session, it was made very clear that this is a budget committee, not a policy committee. And yet here we are ramming a piece of policy into a budget,” said Senator Ben Adams during the penultimate JFAC meeting late in the session.
Horman disagrees with that assessment.
“In my opinion, your fiscal policy is your policy. And that's the job of this committee is to set fiscal policy. So any time we put restrictions or direction on how the money is to be used, that's our job. And that's what we did with it. So if we were going to start a new program and now that should happen in a policy committee. But for Jack to say, here are the conditions on using the funds. That's exactly why the taxpayer sent us here,” Horman said.
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