Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Logan Finney: Lawmakers set the final state budgets this week.

Or did they?

We discuss the showdown over the Idaho Transportation Department budget, a possible hole in another budget, and long anticipated bills that await the governor's signature or veto before lawmakers return next week.

I'm Logan Finney, filling in for Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Melissa Davlin discusses a potential budget shortfall at the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation with members of the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee.

Legislative strategist Amy Dundon from the ACLU of Idaho shares their concerns about some of this year's legislation.

Then doctor Jaclyn Kettler from Boise State University and reporter James Dawson from Boise State Public Radio joined me to discuss the lead up to adjournment.

But first, let's get you caught up.

On the week after a whirlwind two days wrapping up business at the state House.

Lawmakers stand in recess until Wednesday, April 10th, when they plan to take up any possible vetoes from the governor.

The recess comes after the Senate passed the Idaho Transportation Department budget, the third version of that bill, by just a single vote.

The controversy surrounding the transportation budget stems from intent language in the bill prohibiting the sale of the former campus in Boise.

The 44 acre site is situated on State Street, one of the busiest travel corridors in the region and a prime piece of real estate on the edge of downtown, which also happens to be covered by an urban renewal district.

The building has sat vacant since January 2022 after a catastrophic flood damaged all three floors of the old ITD headquarters.

The budget, approved of this week by lawmakers, includes $32.5 million to begin renovating the building.

The private developers, who've all but purchased the property issued the following statement after passage of the budget bill, which effectively kills the sale.

Narrator: The Idaho Legislature sent a clear message to the free market, don't do business with us.

All of Idaho citizens and businesses alike should be concerned.

We hope the legislators and the media pay attention to how much money this decision costs the state over the next few years, in terms of the millions already spent moving ITD, Extensive renovation, remediation, missed job creation and lost revenues.

Finney: The Senate also passed the long awaited library bill this week.

The legislation gives school and public libraries 60 days to move books to an adults only section if the material is deemed harmful to minors.

If the library declines to move a book, the minor or their parent or guardian could sue the institution for $250 in statutory damages.

That amount doesn't include possible legal fees a library could face, nor actual damages that could be awarded in such a lawsuit.

Governor Brad Little had not signed the bill as of this taping.

The governor has until Wednesday morning to sign the bill, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.

Lawmakers expected to take up the ITD budget and the library bill when they came back this week.

But they also faced a surprise issue on Wednesday.

The Idaho Division of Vocational Rehab Limitation revealed it had possibly overspent its appropriation this fiscal year by millions of dollars.

A supplemental appropriation for the agency was advanced, but quickly sent back to the committee after more information put the accuracy of the numbers into question.

Our lead producer, Melissa Davlin, sat down Thursday morning with JFAC members Representative Wendy Horman and Senator Julie VanOrden to find out more about the issues.

Melissa Davlin: Thank you both so much for joining us this week.

First of all, Representative Horman, what happened?

Wendy Horman: I received a message from the governor's office just before 5:00 on Friday afternoon that there was a potential problem with some spending authority for the division of Vocational Rehab.

So I took that conversation up with our own staff starting Monday to try and get to the bottom of what was going on.

Davlin: When you say potential problem, what did you know at the time.

Horman: That there was a shortage of funds.

That the state of some bills for services rendered to support, our disabled population and that there was insufficient spending authority.

Cash and spending authority are two different things in government.

A county having the cash to use is different from having the spending authority, which the legislature grants.

So they had cash, but they didn't have spending authority.

Davlin: And basically they were notified, as far as we know that they bumped up against their spending authority.

Yes.

Senator VanOrden, you've worked on this budget in the past.

What does this agency do?

Julie VanOrden: They provide services through vendors for handicapped individuals to be employed.

And a lot of those vendors have services that they offer right there in their, in their facility where, a lot of handicapped people can be employed and do things that, benefit their communities and, but have that satisfaction of having a job.

Davlin: When we're talking about bills that may or may not be unpaid, it's to those vendors who provide these services for Idahoans across the state.

VanOrden: Correct.

That is who receives the funds.

Horman: It also might be educational providers.

So Idaho State University is the top, top one on the list with the amount of money owed because they're, taking courses that will help them be employed.

Davlin: When we're talking about money owed, how much are we talking?

Horman: That appears to be a moving target.

Initially when we were contacted, we were told $4.7 million.

The list we were provided was over $5 million.

In the hearing, it came out that only $2.7m was necessary.

That's one of the things we're trying to get to the bottom of right now.

The state wants to pay the bills it owes, and the committee wants to make sure that these providers are paid for services that they have rendered.

What is unclear right now is what exactly is owed for services rendered and what isn't.

Davlin: How does that happen?

I know that the state has put a lot of work into making sure that we account for all of the money paid, and all of the bills that we owe.

How do you have such a wide swing between maybe $2.7 million and maybe $5 million?

Horman: I wish I knew the answer to that question.

When the director was asked in committee is this a LUMA problem?

Because we have heard of problems with the system that the state uses to pay bills called LUMA, it's new.

We've had some issues with, implementing that system, and she said it was not LUMA related.

Subsequently, when we started hearing from vendors that the numbers they were seeing on that spreadsheet weren't accurate with what they knew of what they were owed.

Subsequent emails showed that, there had been an error in processing some of these payments that was LUMA related.

So that's what our staff is working on right now, is trying to get to the bottom.

Who has been paid and when?

What do we still owe?

Those are the bills we do want to pay.

VanOrden: The other thing about the sheet that was given to us with all the vendors on it and we asked, are these current, are these, you know, when were these services rendered?

Are they being rendered?

Have they been rendered?

And, what the director had said was, I understood it for her to say, these are what we think.

These are projections.

So these are what we are allowing them to use.

So I think that's why she's saying $2.7m might cover this $5.7m.

That is an estimate.

but we just don't know because the other conversation that was had in the committee, what that she, statements that she made were that if it's more than the $2.7m that we can move it into the next year's budget.

Davlin: But in the next year's budget, aren't you going to have to pay for next year's expenses as well?

VanOrden: Yes we will.

So what does that look like?

Is it, you know, I don't know if you call it a reversion or what, but, that was a concern that came up in the committee also.

Some other questions that came up in the committee that I had were that during the budgeting process when she came in, with the analyst and they presented her budget, one of the things that she was requesting was to take a half $1 million out of trustee, benefits category and put it in operational expenses.

Well, now she's having some of the expenses that were outside of trusteean benefits come back in.

So my concern is why did we take them out of there in the first place if they Davlin: Basically moving pots of money around from one to the other?

VanOrden: Yes.

But she's come up short in trusteean benefits and she had asked us to take those out.

So that's a concern to me.

And I asked her in the committee during that hearing why that was happening.

And she told me that these expenses, operating expenses, were going to benefit the trusteean, trustees.

So that's how she qualified and justified those expenses being pulled.

Davlin: At the end of the day.

How might this affect Idahoans who receive services through the Division of Vocational Rehab?

VanOrden: The vendors could pull back those services.

Reduce those services.

So maybe the trustees, the people that are getting those services might not get the full range of services that they were expecting.

Davlin: Do we know when we'll know what the full consequences are?

What's the potential timeline in other words?

Horman: Well, we are supposed to come back next Wednesday to finish session and adjourn Sine Die.

For finally and, we hope to have the answers to our questions by then so that we can take action.

One of the problems in the hearing was it was difficult to get absolute answers.

So we took action based on the information we had at the time.

Committee asked great questions.

Subsequent to that hearing though, we did restart hearing from vendors and receiving questions that threw the accuracy of the numbers we were presented during the hearing into question.

And so that's why we pulled the bill back.

Our staff is working diligently, even as we speak, to try and verify those numbers.

If it was a LUMA problem, if it wasn't, what do we owe?

And we hope to have those by next Wednesday.

Davlin: Can you assure vendors that they are going to get paid at this point?

Horman: If they have rendered services?

Absolutely, yes.

Davlin: Can you assure trustees that they will continue to receive services at the same level moving forward?

Horman: You know, management of that process happens in that agency.

And that was the concern the governor brought to us in the letter that was provided.

Initially, we didn't have anything in writing.

The co-chair and I made sure that we had all of this in writing, and that was how it was described as a potential mismanagement situation.

So what the agency chooses to do with services will be their business.

It will be our business to make sure they have the funds to pay for what they've agreed to.

Davlin: How do you make sure this doesn't happen again with this agency or any others?

Horman: We've called for an audit.

So the governor immediately called for an independent audit.

We included language in our bill as well to have an independent audit.

There are a few shades of this happening before with previous agencies.

And so I think both the governor and JFAC immediately moved to audit so we can verify what we know and what we don't know, and if there's a problem with internal controls.

So that will, proceed as well.

Davlin: You mentioned the budget that you put forward on Wednesday during this meeting to shore up the rest of the fiscal year.

That was pulled back on Wednesday afternoon.

What's next?

Horman: Right now, our staff is working on verifying those numbers, identifying what we owe so we can prepare to pay those bills.

Davlin: Is it possible that when you come back on Wednesday that JFAC is going to have to meet again and you're going to have to put together a new appropriation?

Horman: It's possible.

Yes.

It's also possible that changes would be made to their appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year.

Davlin: Understood.

How do you know this isn't happening in other agencies?

Horman: That's a great question.

We have struggled with verifying some of the numbers in the new LUMA system, but the comptroller's office has been working diligently on that.

I've been in weekly meetings on that since December to make sure that the numbers we are seeing in the system are accurate.

That work is ongoing, and we will, of course, consider, other requests as they might come forward if we're finding problems.

We know that an error happened once before and some double payments were issued out of health and welfare.

Just because of a functional error in LUMA.

That's been corrected moving forward, but our auditors will be taking a very close look, looking backward.

Davlin: Alright, Senator VanOrden, Representative Horman, thank you so much for joining us.

VanOrden: Sure.

Thank you.

Finney: Like any election year, there were a lot of social issues up for debate this session.

I sat down Tuesday with ACLU of Idaho legislative strategist Amy Dundon to discuss concerns with a range of bills, including Senate Bill 1329 on parental rights in making medical decisions for their children, and Senate Bill 1352 on whether counselors and therapists have to provide care that conflicts with their sincerely held beliefs.

The governor signed both of those bills and they take effect on July 1st.

Amy Dundon: I think what we've seen in the past several years, and maybe particularly in the 2024 legislative session, is that there appear to be attempts to find new avenues to strip away the civil rights and civil liberties of transgender folks, of pregnant people.

Right.

And so what we're seeing here is really a claim that's being made in that in those pieces of legislation that say that religious rights and free speech, have precedent over, the rights of everyone else to live, you know, a life free of discrimination.

So when we have, physicians who, you know, really have to make a choice about whether or not, you know, to see a particular patient or, to give some kind of medical advice, especially with 1329.

Right.

This is a bill where if a kid needs to get you know, any kind of screening done or any kind of, you know, testing done that they maybe don't want their parents to know about, it's so crucial that that kid has access to a trusted adult.

So, you know, we're deeply troubled by, you know, the weaponizing of some rights against other rights and in particular seeing, you know, religious and moral freedoms and deeply held beliefs pitted against the rights of, you know, everyone else to have equal access to, you know, just basic health care, things that are sort of like socially standard.

Finney: How would you respond to a lawmaker who is supportive of these type of bills and says, well, these are just strengthening things that are already in our Constitution and already a bedrock of our society.

Dundon: I'm not sure that that is the the proper, framework.

Right.

I would move to push back a little and say, you know, in Idaho, of all places, where time and time again in our state constitution, it makes so clear that, the government ought not to infringe on religious liberties.

Right.

What that means is that everyone has the rights to practice or not practice a religion.

So when we begin to legislate, religious and, specifically Christianity into our rules and our laws, that's a clear indicator that we've departed from from the idea that, you know, the government has no business in telling people what to believe.

Finney: You can find my full, extended conversation with Amy Dundon from the ACLU of Idaho on the Idaho Reports YouTube channel or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Joining me to discuss the week that was is Doctor Jaclyn Kettler from Boise State University and reporter James Dawson from Boise State Public Radio.

Thank you both for joining us.

James Dawson: Thank you Logan.

Finney: So the two big outstanding issues as we know were the ITD campus sale and the library bill, Jimmy, can you tell us, what it took for the library bill to finally come up for a vote this week?

Dawson: Seemingly a lot.

I mean, this was the fifth, if I'm counting correctly, iteration.

Just this year, of this particular bill.

And the Senate had to amend it even further on the floor after it kind of was, languishing maybe in the Senate State Affairs Committee after the House passed it on a mostly party line vote.

So it again, probably took a whole lot of conversations over the weeks and maybe even months to get it across the finish line.

Finney: And Doctor Kettler, like we've referenced, this is an ongoing issue, the library debate.

What does, what do we know about Idahoans views of the library debate from, research that your university has done?

Jaclyn Kettler: Yeah, through the Boise State, the Idaho Policy Institute survey, almost 70% of Idahoans reported trusting, having some trust or a lot of trust in their libraries.

About 23% reported not trusting the library.

So in general, it looks like most Idahoans support and trust their libraries, which is something that we've seen in other sorts of, you know, measurement of opinion as well.

But this is an interesting issue we seem to be really a major focus across the country.

And many states have passed or debated similar sorts of policies as well.

Finney: Jimmy, the bill is slightly different from the one that Governor Little vetoed last year.

Do we have any indication what he's thinking on this bill?

Dawson: I mean, if I had a crystal ball or a direct line into Brad Little's head, that would be phenomenal.

I don't.

So it still has that, civil lawsuit, you know, portion of the bill that, allows a minimum $250 statutory fine, plus whatever actual damages might have occurred from, the incident that spurred the lawsuit.

So, you know, one of his big, I guess, concerns last year was the so-called bounty scheme that he dubbed, you know, that civil lawsuit procedure yet last year.

So it still contained something like that.

I don't know if he's going to go for it this year.

he's not up for reelection, but the 105 legislators are.

Finney: So before we get to that point, the library bill did pass through the House on the razor's edge of a veto proof majority.

The Senate did reach a veto proof majority.

But the calculus is different when you're voting on a piece of policy versus voting on overriding a governor's veto.

Kettler: That's correct.

And we've seen sometimes votes change when some legislators may be more hesitant or not wanting to vote to overturn a governor's veto for one reason or another.

Right?

They could have already had some concerns or not want to engage in that sort of conflict with the governor.

Finney: The other big issue that we've talked about in the show at length is the ITD campus sale.

Something that came up in the legislative debates is a long standing, discussion over whether JFAC the budget Committee is stepping into policy setting.

Can you remind us what that discussion has been like, Jimmy?

Dawson: Right.

This has been simmering for years, and it's whether or not this Budget Committee, which takes no public testimony, meets pretty much every single day of the legislature for three months, should be making these quote unquote, policy decisions as opposed to just, you know, we're going to allocate X millions of dollars to this particular program in this particular agency.

Mostly the arguments have been don't do that with JFAC, but as you've said, we've increasingly seen multiple dozens of pieces of a quote unquote intent language, that the JFAC co-chairs say carry the force of law.

And in this particular case would block the sale of the campus on State Street in Boise.

Finney: We heard multiple lawmakers on the other side of that debate.

Doctor Kettler, saying, how can you hand out money without saying what it's supposed to be used for?

Do we see these kind of debates in other state legislatures as well?

Kettler: Well, the Idaho Legislature's appropriations process is pretty unique.

Most state legislatures don't have the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee in the same way.

Some states don't even pass separate appropriations budgets all in like an omnibus budget.

So I think that there are some elements here in Idaho that's fairly unique as is.

And so I don't know, I don't think generally and other states are having quite the same sort of debate about whether trying to have budget discussions versus policy discussion.

Sometimes they're all kind of organically put together.

And so it is kind of hard perhaps to find, well, where is the line, where is not the line?

Like can you appropriate without explaining or directing what it's for?

But as Jimmy was saying, right.

Like we've got these, you know, we've got rules and we've got, you know, kind of passed historical approaches for how we've been doing this.

And some of those norms are really kind of in question.

It seems like.

Finney: Jimmy, the provision in the bill that held it up multiple times over the course of the session is that intent language about the sale of the State Street property.

But this is a budget bill.

There is a lot in this bill other than just that property.

Dawson: Right.

So you have the, money to fix roads and bridges.

we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, if I'm remembering correctly.

And that could potentially make it get across the finish line without a veto.

Because as Governor Little has been saying for the past couple of years now, we need to be making these investments in infrastructure right now while we can.

The, you know, COVID money that we saw, you know, bump up our revenue streams has started to decline.

And we can't rely on those sources of income for very much longer.

And so get it done while you can.

Finney: It includes that money for roads and bridges.

It includes 53 employee positions.

It included some local office moves in the Magic Valley that got a lot of attention from those local Magic Valley lawmakers.

Doctor Kettler, the ITD campus sale seems to be an issue that leadership really has been focused on, and the conflict between the House and the Senate is something that we always see, but how is it different this year?

Kettler: Yeah, I think that's an interesting question, because we have seen where one chamber will often end up kind of blocking purposely or through lack of action, what the other chamber is doing.

And, and for years it seemed like the Senate often was kind of blocking what the House was doing.

There were some ideological differences, perhaps, but here we did see leadership themselves in the chambers have pretty I mean, you know, sharing differing views and opinions on what should be done on this issue.

And, you know, and so at the end of the day, it's interesting to see the House proposal, you know, move through and those votes get switched on the Senate side to pass it there at the very last.

Finney: Let's talk about that, Jimmy.

The positioning for a while there was the house wants to block the sale, the Senate doesn't.

That calculus changed after a very lengthy caucus meeting.

Dawson: Yeah.

What was it?

Probably like approaching three hours, if I'm remembering right.

It was an intense time, because this came right after Senator or Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder, pulled out this procedural move that blocked the second version of the ITD budget.

JFAC had to go back and drop another 100 bucks off of the total spending allowance.

And, you know, there are a whole lot of questions.

We don't know exactly what happened in those closed door caucus meetings.

But you eventually had the Senate Majority Leader, Kelly Anthon, along with Senator Jeff Schroeder, switching their votes from, no to yes and getting it.

Finney: Yeah, yeah.

And when you and I spoke with Leader Anthon, after that vote, he said the first time he was kind of going along supporting Winder, who was wanting to preserve the sale, whereas he told us the second time he was going with what a majority of the Republican caucus had decided in that caucus meeting.

Dawson: Yeah.

Even though there didn't seem to be a majority of Republicans in there to pass it.

So I don't know if that was his calculus, or if it some other factor that we don't know about, was influencing that decision.

But you're right.

I mean, that's what he said.

He also said that, you know, he didn't really care one way or the other.

It didn't shock his conscience.

It wasn't unconstitutional in his opinion.

And his constituents are in Burley and, you know, the Mini-Cassia area.

So it's not like it's necessarily going to affect them directly.

Finney: Doctor Kettler, this is a budget bill with a provision that's been very controversial, and Governor Little as the administrative head of the state that's been trying to sell this property.

Would it be in the realm of possibility for him to veto a budget bill over this provision?

Kettler: I mean, I think that's kind of an something we'll be watching for the next few days, right.

If this is something that he will veto.

There has been discussion like the the buyer, the potential buyers of the property have said that this is bad.

It's going to reflect poorly on Idaho to back out of this deal.

It looks like bad for business.

Some of these types of arguments as well, or, you know, kind of plans for the area, for the city, what they were planning to do and some of the changes along with State Street.

But I think it's also interesting how this comes to some of those legislative executive branch battles we've had over the last few sessions where the legislature has tried, or, sometimes successfully, to really push and extend their power relative to the executive branch.

Finney: Jimmy, we've got under a minute left, but Little is kind of known for preserving his political capital and picking which fights he's going to fight with the legislature.

Dawson: It's true.

I don't I don't know if that's going to be one of these since, as we talked about earlier, he's not up for reelection.

Would a veto potentially affect legislative races during this particular election cycle?

I'm not sure.

Like we said, it's arcane.

It's inside baseball.

A lot to be left determined.

Finney: Is this the sort of thing that voters would care about, Doctor Kettler, this property sale versus something like the library bill.

Kettler: I suspect voters will be much more aware of the voter bill, or the library bill, sorry.

And much more attention on that.

That doesn't mean, though, that some of these internal or less, you know, like maybe the details can still affect the primary elections in other ways.

Finney: Well, lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday.

We'll see you next week.

Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.