In the next division of the public school budget, the operations division, Democrats on JFAC sought to shift $2.5 million to discretionary funding for school districts, and just fund a $2.5 million request for new information technology staffers on a one-time basis from a dedicated fund balance. "We felt that we could tap that source for three years to fund the IT staffing," said Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow. Sen. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, said the move was an attempt to address "what was kind of an unprecedented emergency action" over the past several years, in which lawmakers have shifted nearly all the specific pots of money the state sends out to school districts, for everything from textbooks to utilities to gifted and talented education, into the discretionary category. "We are not only asking them to have less money per support unit, we are asking them to do so much more with that," she said.

Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Idaho Falls, said he thought the ongoing funding for the IT staffers was important. Ringo said she thought there was enough fund balance in the public school income fund to cover that for three years, at which point it could be replaced with general funds. The Democratic proposal failed on a 4-16 party-line vote, and then the GOP proposal passed on a 16-4 party-line vote.