{"id":2548,"date":"2011-12-02T13:12:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T20:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=2548"},"modified":"2012-03-22T10:56:03","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T16:56:03","slug":"idaho-budget-expert-outlines-tough-choices-ahead-for-legislators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2011\/12\/02\/idaho-budget-expert-outlines-tough-choices-ahead-for-legislators\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho Budget Expert Outlines Tough Choices Ahead for Legislators"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cathy Holland-Smith<\/p>

Click the image to view the PowerPoint<\/p><\/div>\n

Idaho’s legislative budget expert expects the state to end the fiscal year with $77 million in the bank.\u00a0 That’s if current projections hold.<\/p>\n

Cathy Holland-Smith manages the Budget and Policy Analysis Division at the Legislative Services Office.\u00a0 She unveiled budget projections to a group of lawmakers and Idaho business leaders at the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

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Holland-Smith reminded the audience she’s not an economist, but she’s an accountant.\u00a0 And any policy decisions are up to the lawmakers.\u00a0 Still, Holland-Smith said based on the numbers and projections from the Idaho Division of Financial Management<\/a>, the legislature will have to take a hard look at spending more money on education and healthcare.\u00a0 “Whether or not you can really keep the spending down to the levels we reached in 2010, I don’t believe that we can,” Holland-Smith says.\u00a0 “Health care and education are the two areas we have the most pressure to fund.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to believe those pressure\u2019s won\u2019t return.”<\/p>\n

Holland-Smith says the state’s current financial picture looks much better than it has in previous years, the last three of which have seen revenue shortfalls<\/a>.\u00a0 The AP reports Idaho will begin restocking reserves drained from about $400 million back at the start of the recession in fiscal year 2009.<\/p>\n

Holland-Smith says state agencies are asking for money above their existing budgets.\u00a0 But, she says, not everyone will get what they ask for.\u00a0 Agencies have requested almost $143 million in supplemental funding:<\/p>\n

[spreadsheet key=”0AiLU6Cs5LWZIdEEybF9weGdMTG1hcHl1M0FMdTBld2c” source=”” sheet=0 filter=0 paginate=0 sortable=1]<\/p>\n

Holland-Smith says the legislature will have some tough policy questions ahead of them this session.\u00a0 In addition to increasing funding for education and health and human services, she says lawmakers need to consider pay raises for public employees, who haven’t seen a positive change in their paychecks since 2008.\u00a0 She addressed the desire of some lawmakers to spur business growth through tax incentive programs<\/a>.\u00a0 Holland-Smith says there will always be an interest in using incentives for growth.\u00a0 “But, that does take away money from the revenue stream, typically,” she says, “the challenge will be, what can you afford?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idaho’s legislative budget expert expects the state to end the fiscal year with $77 million in the bank.\u00a0 That’s if current projections hold. Cathy Holland-Smith manages the Budget and Policy Analysis Division at the Legislative Services Office.\u00a0 She unveiled budget projections to a group of lawmakers and Idaho business leaders at the Associated Taxpayers of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[121],"tags":[235,55,42],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}