Some close votes on budgets in JFAC, but differences are small…
There have been some close votes in JFAC this morning, as the joint budget committee continues setting agency budgets. But the differences being debated in competing budget proposals were small. For example, Rep. Phylis King’s budget motion for Medical Boards differed from Sens. Dan Schmidt and Sheryl Nuxoll’s motion for the same agency by just $7,000 – King noted that auditors have noted a growing fund balance at the agency and recommended spending it down, and the agency has a bookkeeper who will retire next June for whom a $7,000 vacation payout will be needed.
No state general funds are involved. King said allocating the money now will help spend down the agency’s balance as recommended by the auditors, and also ensure a month of overlap so the new bookkeeper can be trained by the outgoing one. Her motion passed, 10-9.
On the budget for public health districts, there were three competing motions. Sen. Dan Johnson’s motion to add $5,900 to the governor’s budget recommendation to cover the general-fund portion of medical inflation costs was defeated on a 9-11 vote. Then, Nuxoll’s motion to match the governor’s recommendation passed, 11-9; it doesn’t allocate any money for inflationary adjustments; the districts had requested $6,700. The passage of that motion meant the third one, from Schmidt and King, didn’t get voted on; it would have added about a fifth of the money the health districts requested to cover their 27th payroll costs; the governor didn’t recommend any funding.
The 27th payroll period is a once-every-11-years quirk of the calendar; Idaho’s seven public health districts must cover it, but much of their funding doesn’t come from the state – it comes from county payments and fees that they charge. Schmidt said his motion was intended to cover the fee portion of that cost, because the districts charge fees at rates set by the state, and they have no option to raise them to cover the payroll quirk. The districts had requested $1,040,400 to cover those costs; Schmidt’s motion proposed $211,000. The successful motion offered nothing toward that; it reflects a 6.6 percent increase in state general funds for the health districts next year.
At the health districts’ budget hearing before JFAC on Jan. 21, Maggie Mann, director of the Southeastern Idaho Public Health District, said the districts are struggling with a looming budget hole and don’t have a way to cover the costs. Mann said the health districts have identified more than $2 million in increased costs they’ll face next year, including the 27th payroll period, increases in health insurance costs, and increases in fees for state services. “Even a 3 percent increase from our counties will not then allow us to make up this kind of a hole,” she said.
The biggest budget approved so far this morning, for the state Division of Veterans Services, passed unanimously , 20-0. Just over $1 million of the division’s $30 million-plus budget comes from state general funds. JFAC included two items the division requested that Gov. Butch Otter hadn’t recommended: Covering 27th payroll costs for “group” positions, which is the classification the division largely uses for its nursing staff at state veterans homes; and a $509,200 increase in pay for nursing staff, which has been seeing 40 to 45 percent turnover. “Turnover is more costly than a couple dollars per hour,” legislative budget analyst Jared Tatro told budget writers, explaining the request.
Overall, the budget set for the Veterans Services Division came to a 7 percent increase in state general funds to $1.1 million, and $35.5 million in total funds, a 10.4 percent increase. Much of the total-funds increase is a one-time allocation of more than $3 million for construction, alteration and repair projects that had been requested from the state’s Permanent Building Fund, but instead are being covered from available funds within the division. The division’s funding largely comes from either federal funds, a state endowment, or receipts, including from Medicaid and private-pay clients who live in the state veterans homes.
