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Thank you.

Honestly, I should have been stronger in my letter and I apologize to the committee that I now have to come before you and explain what, how it would devastate my office.

Proposed budget cuts are poised to hit every state agency differently.

But lawmakers have had that information available the entire time.

What funds will they decide to restore and what will get left on the table?

Filling in for Melissa Devlin I'm Logan Finney.

Idaho reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Idaho Attorney General Raoul Labrador joins me to share his concerns about the legislature's proposed budget cuts.

Then I sit down with House Minority Leader Elena Rubel and Assistant Minority Leader Steve Burch, and with speaker Mike Boyle to hear their thoughts on the current legislative session.

But first, the State Tax Commission reports this week it's received more than 6300 families applications on behalf of 11,280 students for the first year of the Parental Choice tax credit.

That's a program consisting of $50 million in income tax credits.

Families can use those to refund the cost of sending their children to private school.

On Monday, political action network Reclaim Idaho held its annual lobby day at the state House, where the organizers and speakers from three public school districts demanded that not a dollar more go toward funding private education.

Further, the school district is underfunded by roughly $790,000 in special education alone.

That's not our total funding gap.

That's just in special education.

For small rural district, $790,000 represents teachers, paraprofessionals, therapist, instructional supports and services that our students with disabilities depend on every single day statewide.

That shortfalls is staggering hundred million dollars, if not more.

it feels like a little bit of a slap in the face when they find $50 million to fund a private institution.

So here's the problem.

They will often tell me, Joey, you're overreacting.

You're exaggerating.

Here's the thing, Joey.

It's not $50 million that came out of the education budget.

Well, then I said you found $50 million.

And you know that we're underfunded, we're starving, and yet you chose to feed something else that you're not obligated to do constitutionally.

Oftentimes we focus specifically on the federal government.

But in reality, as we are seeing here today in the state of Idaho, it's the budget cuts.

It's the decisions that these people make every day that impact us on a daily basis.

It meant helping them engage with our local elected officials in a meaningful way.

One way I continue that work today is to help my students remember they are sixth graders.

Understand how the Idaho State Constitution impacts their lives.

They, as sixth graders, understand that there is a constitutional mandate to fund fully public education.

Thus, I know that our elected officials can understand that their job is to fully fund public education.

the House of Representatives considered a bill on Tuesday that would require public school classrooms to start each day with a 62nd moment of silence.

The floor debate ranged from the effects on students mental well-being, to whether it's a reasonable request to make of the school's.

They're encouraging these kids to walk out for ICE protests.

I think if they can do that, they can take a minute of silence.

I love the idea, but I do not believe that we need one more regulation on public school.

I just want to take a minute to make it very clear what this bill exactly does.

I would call this probably a prop good gentleman.

So if you want to debate the bill, debate the bill.

If you want to do a prop, you can do it that way.

We lasted 10 seconds.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed a bill on Tuesday to no longer require registration stickers on Idaho license plates.

Supporters say the practice is outdated and eliminating the stickers would save money.

While opponents voiced concerns about unintended consequences for law enforcement.

With real time digital technology and computer information.

Law enforcement runs a plate every time, receiving all the information they need to run a plate on your vehicle.

Making stickers really not needed.

But senators, most importantly, this bill frees up an estimated $300,000.

To just randomly run plates through your computer.

Is taking number one, a shot in the dark.

And number two, it's time consuming.

And as I mentioned, it can be dangerous for the officer involved.

An alternative method is to call the plate in to a dispatcher.

That ties up the radio frequency, ties up your dispatcher, and ties up the officer, diverting his attention from other things.

That legislation heads to the governor's desk.

Also this week, a House Business Committee meeting on Monday drew controversy when a conservative activist dressed up as an offensive Mexican caricature attempted to testify on an E-Verify bill.

That's a policy that would make employers submit information to the federal government for verifying immigration status of their employees.

I'm going to use the 18 seconds I have to say what happened today is unacceptable.

That man should have been removed from this room.

There, Mr.

Matthews.

That.

That's enough.

Yes.

I'm going to ask you to please take your seat.

We handle that in the way that we best saw fit.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks for being here.

We'll have more on this with House speaker Mike Moyle later in the show.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Raul Labrador appeared before the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee detailing the impacts that proposed four and 5% budget cuts would have on his staff.

Specifically, the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, or Isac, which investigates sexual abuse.

As I explained in my letter to the committee, a $1.3 million reduction this year means that I will have to ask my employees to take 11 furlough days, or close to a 5% cut in their salaries.

This would be devastating to our employees and my office will lose significant staff.

In the alternative, I will have to eliminate 12 positions from our staff to make this work.

In the last three years, we have saved at least ten live victims.

These are children who were actually being abused by the people who were sharing their videos.

A child in the home learned from a presentation that he heard from our ICAC unit that our canines can smell electronic devices, including cameras, and told our investigator, I just don't want any more cameras in the house.

The man who placed those cameras and sexually abused the two children is now in prison.

I want to be clear that I understand what you're going through.

I understand your budget, constraints, but I'm just requesting that you restore $980,000 ongoing to our FY 27 maintenance and add to our 26 budget that you took away, so we can continue to do the great things that our office has been doing for the people of Idaho.

The AG's office was not originally scheduled this session to present to the Joint Budget Committee.

I sat down with Attorney General Labrador after the hearing to find out more.

Attorney general, thanks for being here.

It's my honor.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

So you went and testified before the Budget Committee this week.

The Attorney General's office was not scheduled for a budget hearing originally.

What drew you down?

Or drew you up rather to the third floor in the budget room?

Well, as you said, we weren't scheduled for a budget hearing because we were not asking for any enhancements.

I actually haven't asked for enhancements for a couple of years.

I've been trying very hard to make do with the money that the legislature gives us.

And we've added, as I testified this week, we've added new positions, new responsibilities, new and new things to do in the office without asking for more money from the government.

When the governor, sent in his request, he did not include the Office of Attorney General and the 3% hold backs.

We did our our office is a little bit different than other government offices because we are 90% staff.

You know, you in other government offices, you have contracts and you have things that maybe you can stop a contract for a year.

But for me, it would mean that I would have to give everybody about a 5% haircut in their salaries.

And we're already doing a lot more than we used to do before I was the attorney general.

We're accomplishing some amazing things in the Office of Attorney General.

We're having great victories.

And the last thing I want to do is, is to punish all the employees that are working extra hard, for the people of Idaho.

So I just thought, I want it to be held harmless on that 3%.

And I was trying to explain to the committee why it was so important for them to to view our office a little bit differently.

And also, as I testified in committee, as you saw, we also have bring back about $2.3 for every dollar that is spent on our office.

So we are we actually have a good ROI on the money that the people of Idaho, spent on the office of Attorney General.

As you referenced, you're you're a separately elected constitutional officer.

You didn't fall under the purview of the governor's executive order for those 3% hold backs.

It's still, you know, coming into a tight budget year, though, did you prepare for, you know, reduction plans if JFAC were to ask for it?

I mean, you always have to prepare for things like that.

So we explained to them exactly what would happen.

And what would happen is that we would have to do furloughs, for all of our employees that are equal to three weeks of pay.

That's why I'm talking about it.

I'm saying it's probably about a 5% haircut on on their salaries.

So we would have to ask each one of our employees to take three weeks off, unpaid.

So and, or we would have to cut 14 staff from, from our office.

So either one of those we can do, if that's what the, what the legislature does, because we're at the whim, obviously, of the legislature.

So we are prepared for it, you know, for all contingencies in, in this budget year.

I do want to acknowledge, though, that you, your office and, even before you took the office, the attorney general's office kind of struggled sometimes with staffing or retention.

You guys pay relatively less than other attorney jobs, in the area.

I imagine this wouldn't make that any easier for you.

Well, that's that's one of the problems.

You know, as I joked in, in, in the committee hearing, my son in law, who's a third year out of law school, makes more money than my highest paid attorneys in the office who have 10, 20 or 30 years experience.

You do make a sacrifice when you become a government attorney.

And I think all of my attorneys understand that.

I think they understand that, that they're not going to be making the wages that you're making the private sector.

But it would be different, difficult for them when, you know, there are other jobs available out there.

It would be difficult.

And I think it's really important to to know that the things that we do in the Office of Attorney General, nobody else can do.

You know, there are some things that government does that maybe the private, the private sector could be doing.

But what we do in the Office of Attorney General, we nobody else can do it.

You know, I have the authority to litigate the cases for the state of Idaho every time we get sued.

I have the authority to represent the agencies when we're doing contracts.

And things like that.

Those are things that only the Office of Attorney General can do.

I have the authority to do a lot of things.

You know, protecting children in the ICAC unit.

You can't just, you know, you can't just send that out to the private sector.

So the, the important things that government should be doing, I'm a limited government conservative, so I understand the budget issues.

I was here during as a legislator during the 2006 to 2010 sessions that were very difficult in Idaho.

I understand that you have to squeeze, and you have to make sure that you account for every penny that that you have spent.

But I have been doing that as the steward of the money of the people of Idaho.

I have been fairly conservative in my budget request.

I haven't had asked for increases for the last three years to my budget.

And, and I think it would be very difficult for us to to handle it.

But like you said, if, you know, if, if we're required to do it, there are contingencies for that as well.

I do want to say on the ICAC, topic for a moment, for anyone who's not familiar to the Internet Crimes Against Children unit, deals with child sexual abuse material and any of those related crimes.

What would these proposed budget cuts?

The 5% mean for ICAC specifically?

So if you look at the budget right now, they held harmless.

For example, the Highway Patrol.

They held harmless, some of the law enforcement units.

They did not hold my office harmless.

So so I actually lose sometimes, some of our law enforcement officers because they can go to their other agency, and we're not talking about private, but just other state agencies or public agencies and make much more money than they make in the office of attorney general.

But what I did when I became the attorney general is I completely revamped that unit, and I made sure that the Office of Attorney General was doing a good job, was being a good steward of the people's money.

We have tripled the number of arrests that we do in the ICAC unit, the number of prosecutions, as you know, we had a back lock of cyber, cyber tips that was growing exponentially every year.

Now, every time we receive a cyber tip of one of these horrendous crimes that is happening in the state of Idaho, we actually look at those cases within 24 hours.

And I did that by being fiscally conservative.

I looked at some of the office, some of the attorneys that we had that were maybe not doing full work, and I got rid of some of the attorneys who were not doing the work that I needed them to do.

And I created new positions in ICAC.

I created a new position in the Office of Civil Litigation.

I created new positions.

I even started a whole new unit in my in my office to deal with the appeals to the United States Supreme Court and the appellate courts.

And I did all of these things without asking for more money.

I could have come to a legislature and said, I need more money for all these things.

And I think in the past few years, I probably would have received that money.

But I as a fiscal conservative, I thought, I can do all these things without asking for more money and it would be tight for us.

So all these things that I have added without asking for additional revenues, I would probably have to cut back now because we we have already cut so much in the office.

Like you reference.

You're a fiscal conservative.

You were here in the House during those years of the Great Recession.

Do you think that this approach that JFAC is taking the broad across the board cuts to all the agencies, do you think that's a good way of going about it?

Or we seeing unintended, unintended consequences like your office?

It seems like every agency director I talked to says, hey, you don't cut this, this is really important.

And that's a problem.

I'm not going to comment on that.

I was a as a former legislator, I understand how difficult these decisions are.

I understand the hard work that that they have to do.

I think some things sometimes these things happen where you have to make these difficult decisions.

But I think as a fiscal conservative former legislator, you do have to look at the proper role of government and what thinks is the government doing right now that maybe they shouldn't be doing?

You can't look at anything that we're doing in the Office of Attorney General that is not the proper role of government.

What we're doing is exactly what what the government is required to do, what the legislature has asked us to do.

We haven't added new things that are superfluous.

We're actually just, you know, saving kids, saving families, helping consumers.

And litigating the case of the these are all the things that are the proper role of government.

And so I think that's where you have to make that tough decision is.

You know, some programs may have to be cut even more significantly than the the two and three and four and 5%.

Other areas, maybe you should hold harmless, but luckily I'm not the policymaker.

I don't have to make those decisions.

And but I you know, I feel for them because they are making very tough decisions this year.

All right, Attorney General, thanks so much for making time.

Thank you.

Democratic lawmakers have been sounding the alarm all year with concerns about the Budget Committee's new reduction and enhancement process.

I sat down on Wednesday with House Minority Leader Elena Rubel and Assistant Minority Leader Steve Burch to hear their thoughts as the budget bills slowly make their way to the floor.

Representative Rubel, I'll start with you from your perspective, how are things going so far this session?

Not great.

I have not been.

We knew we were headed for trouble this session when we walked in.

In fact, you know, last fall, we had a sneak preview when we learned that we were $555 million short of being able to cover even the basic maintenance budgets to keep our agencies operating.

So so we knew it was going to be a pinch.

But immediately we got in and very frustratingly, it got worse almost from the get go.

Where as as deep a hole as we were in, they started digging and they passed about another $200 million tax cut on top of the massive revenue cuts that left us so short of being able to fund our needs.

So we have just been sitting here immensely frustrated, watching cuts to everything we hold dear, cuts to Meals on Wheels, cuts to youth suicide prevention, cuts to emergency mental health care, water projects, higher education, lower education and all while we feel that there are much better alternatives to restore revenue that we just haven't been allowed to discuss.

Thank you.

Dad.

Well, I think it's an election year.

And so the majority party is you know, this has become the year of flags, bathrooms and immigrants.

Quite frankly.

And, and of course, the budget, you know, and cutting costs and a lot of the bills that we're seeing, I think are really help to designed to create, talking points for the upcoming May primary elections that the majority party, really focuses on.

And it's really unfortunate because we talk to constituents all the time and, you know, their concern about affordability, making it through the week, you know, and making sure that they have their health care and Medicaid and so forth.

And, I can tell you that, while while the majority party is focusing on May, I'm focusing on November, where, where a lot of the, a lot of the chickens are going to come home to roost.

When we start looking at seeing the consequences of these budget cuts.

Especially important, your purplish districts there in western.

Boise.

Actually, and the thing is, it's actually important to everyone because, you know, pain and illness knows no partizanship you know, infrastructure, asphalt and there's no partizanship.

The major issues in this state are mostly nonpartisan issues.

As the budget conversation, the budget bills move from JFAC now onto the floor.

What are you guys hearing in your conversations with, majority party members?

Well, depends which majority party members.

There are quite a number, you know, more centrist, moderate Republicans who are really concerned about the scale of the cuts and really feel that these massive rescissions, these massive across the board cuts to everything are really a mistake.

And we're hoping that they're going to vote no on the floor when they reach there.

But you know, I think others just think this is a great opportunity to hatchet everything.

And I think this was part of their master plan was to make sure we have no revenue so that, you know, in their mind, we would then have no choice but to eliminate programs.

So, yeah, the majority party is certainly not a monolith.

I think there are divisions of opinion within it.

Real interesting.

You know, the telling point on that is how fast a conformity bill got pushed through.

It lightning speed through the House, through the Senate on the governor's desk in time to be put into front of JFAC so they can then justify another $155 million in budget cuts.

And that was very disappointing, because I think a lot of those folks knew what a deep budget hole we were in and that we were in absolutely no position to be piling, more hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue on top of what we already lost last year after the vouchers and the deep income tax cuts.

All right.

Well, Representative Berch, you sit on the Revenue and Taxation Committee after your tenure on Education.

Representative Rubel, you introduced a bill in Rev and Tax earlier this week on Monday.

Has to do with sales taxes.

Can you give me a brief pitch and then we'll dive into the details?

Yeah.

You bet.

Well, this is something I've been noodling over for some time, and this really seemed like a good year to bring it because we have a serious revenue problem.

We do not have a spending problem.

We have our agencies are funded at bare barebones levels, if that.

But we have no revenue to meet even those barebones needs.

So I think there are some things we could do, but some of them are too politically difficult to raise.

Things like repealing the vouchers bill for private schools, that seems like really low hanging fruit, but I don't think, leadership on the other side would let us do that.

I think peeling back some of last year's income tax cuts would make a lot of sense.

They won't let us do that.

But this was one way to look at bringing revenue back into the pot that I thought maybe we could get a discussion going on that's a little less politically fraught.

We lose billions of dollars every year in lost revenue due to sales tax exemptions, many of which were passed 40 or 50 years ago.

And nobody has looked at them ever since.

And that makes us an outlier.

Most states periodically do a review or an audit to see it.

Does it still make sense to be not collecting taxes on this other the other thing, we've never looked at them, and I thought at least it made sense to go back and see where the money's going.

And if we still want to have it be going there.

And I'd like to pick up on the comment about us having a revenue problem.

So there's a couple things that most people don't know.

Last year alone, the legislature excluded from revenue collection over $5.4 billion just in sales tax exemptions And it's not that those exemptions are wrong or bad.

The problem is they never get reviewed and they never expire.

And we're one of a minority of states that has no review process.

If we did and, we determined that 90% of those tax breaks were okay, keep them.

That would still float $600 million every single year into the general fund, Thanks to representatives Rubel and Burch for joining me.

You can find our extended conversation online on The Idaho Report's YouTube channel.

That's at youtube.com.

Slash Idaho Reports or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I also sat down on Thursday morning with speaker of the House Mike Moyle to get his take on the budget and how the session is shaping up so far.

Mr.

Speaker, thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

How is session going so far in your estimation?

Fast and furious.

Lots of stuff going on.

It's a good thing, though.

You hit that time of year where all the budgets, bills are coming out of the committees, the budgets are starting to show up.

You'll see them next week and they start to come down to the floor.

Things are moving fast, which is good.

Budgets have been kind of the big headline topic this year, obviously, as they're headed toward the floor.

What are you hearing from the rank and file?

Well, you you got to split down there, right?

You've got a bunch that want more cuts.

You got a bunch that want to put more back in.

You've got real, you know, head knocking going on.

And they'll be interesting to see how these things go forward.

I think some of the tension will go away when we see what's put back in those budgets.

Right.

The add ons and enhancements.

Yeah they're doing that now.

And that's you know you saw some last Friday.

You'll see some more again today I guess this airs tonight - Friday tomorrow you'll see some more of that.

And then those add a back come back in and people see where the were filling in the holes.

I think it will alleviate some of the concerns I hope anyway.

Are you happy with how this rescission or reduction enhancement process is going?

Do you think it was a good idea to put those 4%, 5% cuts across the board and make everyone come back and ask for those things?

Well, I think I do.

Some don't.

But remember, we did leave some out, which has made it harder.

We left education out, corrections out, police out.

I mean, so we're trying to make the cuts in spaces that sometimes it gets pretty hard and you're going to have to go back and backfill some of those cuts.

But no, I think it's the best way, you know, set the table down and come back.

Make your asks to fill the holes that we need and I think it'll work.

But there's a lot of tension, right?

Because some would like to see them on the front end at the back end.

So we got to be careful how we handle it.

One of the folks who came and testified at JFAC this week was Attorney General Labrador.

He spoke about the personnel reductions he would have to make.

He's really concerned about ICAC the Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

Were you able to listen in on that testimony?

What what do you make of his concerns?

I didn't, and I understand his concerns because his budget's mostly salaries.

But one of the things that worries me, and I'm not talking about the attorney general, but in general, sometimes state agencies will try to cut things they know are important to people and not the things that they should cut where the waste is.

And I'm hoping that's not going on in Idaho, but I'm hearing and yeah, I'm leaving the AG out of this, but I'm hearing for some other folks on some of the other budgets that they can make reductions in places that don't affect the people of Idaho as much.

And have less of an impact on the citizens.

And they're not, I’m told.

So we're going to kind of watch that and see if we can find some of those examples.

But but the AG on the other note, does have a hard time.

His budget is all salaries.

It's the same with some of the other ones, also, though.

Is that a fair way to do things now, in a world where some agencies have to rely on general funds and are subject to budget cuts?

But if you're lucky enough to have a dedicated fund that some lawmakers set up for you back in the day, you're protected.

Is that a good way to run things?

No.

And you're seeing some some of the budgets that are trying to delve into the dedicated funds and move things around a little bit there and, because because, listen, our ultimate goal is to make sure that we get out of here with the reductions we need to keep Idaho home with the least amount of impact on the citizens.

And that's the balancing act that's going on right now.

And and we'll get there.

It takes time, but we'll get there.

Would you are there are there specific things that have been cut, like the Attorney General's office that you, Representative Moyle would want to see added back in?

There's some stuff in regards to CTE I'd like to see back.

Some stuff like that.

The health and welfare stuff.

Medicaid, I, I don't know how to get a hold of that one.

That's the one that worries me the most, by the way.

It's the one budget that's just screaming up.

And if we don't get that under control, it's going to be the one that drives down other budgets like education.

You know, we all education is the number one budget.

We're going to do all we can to protect education.

But if we don't figure out how to get Medicaid under control, it's going to delve into education, the future.

You're going to get to a point.

You're gonna have nowhere else to go on.

Right?

Well, I've got you.

I want to change gears just a little bit.

There's been a bit of a controversy this week.

Earlier, this week in the House Business Committee, a fellow came in, testified in a costume that a lot of people have found offensive.

Have you spoken with the chairman and with that committee about how that went?

I haven't talked to the committee.

We've talked to some of the chairmen and vice chairs.

We have a meeting about it next week at first of the week.

That's inappropriate.

We need to figure out how to handle that a little bit better next time, and we'll work on that.

It was.

It was an anomaly.

We've never seen something like that happen before, because most of the times people are respectful in this building and we don't play those kind of games so we’ll we'll we'll change some policies and figure out how to handle it better in the future.

All right.

Well, I'm sure we'll have reason to talk to you again in the next couple of weeks.

Heck yeah.

Speaker Moyle, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

That's our show this week.

Extended interviews and more legislative news are available online on our podcast feed and the Idaho Reports YouTube channel.

Make sure you're subscribed to our social media pages as well as the weekly email newsletter.

All the links are online on our website.

Idaho reports.org.

While you're there, check out our budget tracker.

I'll be updating it daily as bills hit the House and Senate floors.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you right back here next week.

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