Idaho Legislature's budget co-chair unsure when budgets will be ready to move forward

Yahoo

14-03-2025

Idaho Legislature Budget and Policy Analyst France Lippett gives a presentation to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee at the State Capitol building on Jan. 23, 2024. JFAC co-chairs Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, (center) and Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls (right) are leading the meeting. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho Legislature's powerful budget committee may have hit another speed bump Friday as legislators are attempting to wind down the 2025 legislative session.
Legislative leaders set a nonbinding target date to adjourn the session next week on March 21.
But any realistic hope of adjourning by March 21 has gone out the window.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC for short, has not yet considered or set the largest budgets in the state – including the Medicaid budget and the public schools budgets.
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On Friday, JFAC co-chair Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, adjourned JFAC 'subject to the call of the chair' rather than adjourning until Monday like normal. Horman said JFAC may not meet on Monday, as it usually would, because budget motions may not be ready to be voted on by the committee.
Friday was the 68th day of the 2025 legislative session, and legislators say they are waiting on JFAC to set the budget before adjourning the legislative session for the year. Last year, when Horman and JFAC co-Chairman Scott Grow, R-Eagle, announced major changes to JFACs budget and policy procedures, they said the new JFAC procedures would be more efficient and ensure all the budgets weren't coming forward at the end of the legislative session. However, this year, unfinished budgets threaten to extend the length of the legislative session.
On Friday, Horman said JFAC needs to carve out time for the smaller work groups of JFAC members to meet. Work groups are small sub groups of the committee that are assigned to work on certain budget topics, like natural resources, education or health and human services. The work groups meet privately to develop budget motions to bring forward for all of JFAC to vote on.
With JFAC daily meetings running right up until the Idaho Senate morning floor sessions this week, Horman said the work groups did not have much dedicated structured time to meet this week to develop budget motions.
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'We have lost five hours of work group time this week due to the Senate going on the floor at 10 a.m.,' Horman said Friday. 'We are uncertain if we have any budgets that we can pass or even bring forward on Monday,' Horman said Friday. 'So we will consult with our staff following this meeting, but we will adjourn subject to call of the chair.'
Grow also said the work groups need time to meet and develop consensus.
'We recognize the importance of these work groups,' Grow said. 'We are trying to get all the time we can, because if we lose a day voting, that just puts us back another day, potentially, longer before we can sine die.'
Sine die is the Latin phrase legislators use when they adjourn the legislative session for the year without scheduling a day to reconvene.
In an interview Friday, Horman said that even though she was unsure if JFAC could meet Monday or would even have budgets to consider, she is not shutting the committee down for the year. Horman told the Idaho Capital Sun that JFAC will reconvene next week to set budgets.
'Yes, it's call of the chair, simply because we don't know if we are meeting Monday or Tuesday,' Horman said. By Friday afternoon, several hours after Horman made her initial announcement, a potential path forward may have started to emerge. Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, announced the Idaho Senate would reconvene slightly later, at 10:30 a.m. Monday instead of 10 a.m.
JFAC staffers also posted an agenda on the Idaho Legislature's website calling for JFAC to meet Monday morning.
At noon on Friday, House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, said he hopes the work groups find time to meet next week and that JFAC finishes setting all of the state budgets next week.
Moyle said it generally takes two additional weeks after JFAC finishes setting budgets to wrap up the legislative session.
But Moyle also warned there could be trouble coming even after JFAC sets the budgets. After JFAC sets all the budgets, those budgets are then sent to the floor of both the Idaho House and Idaho Senate, where they need to pass with a simple majority vote.
'There's some concerns with a lot of budgets too, which could keep us here longer, too,' Moyle told the Sun.
'Hopefully they've got a path (forward),' Moyle said. 'We visited last night. I think they've got a path to try to get those done (in JFAC) by the middle of next week. Hopefully we get that done, and we can get those budgets going to get out of here.'
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