Legislative budget-writers agreed Friday on a multibillion-dollar spending framework for K-12 and higher education.

In Statehouse lexicon, the bills are known as “maintenance” budgets — which roll this year’s base spending into next year’s budgets. All told, the 10 maintenance budget bills are likely to account for about 90% of Gov. Brad Little’s overall $14.4 billion budget, including state and federal funds.

The raw numbers for education:

• The K-12 maintenance budget comes to $3.17 billion — including state tax dollars, dedicated funds and more than $250 million from the feds.
• A State Board of Education base budget, funding higher education, comes in at nearly $1.1 billion. This includes about $672 million from state tax collections and $373 million from dedicated funds — namely student fees and tuition.
• A catchall budget for “general government” includes an ongoing $74.8 million for Idaho Launch, a postsecondary financial aid program. This is a bit of a budgeting departure; last year’s maintenance budgets did not include Launch, which was then a brand-new program.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee plowed through the 10 maintenance budget bills Friday morning. Most of them, including the education budgets and the general government budgets, passed on unanimous 20-0 votes.

The workmanlike meeting was a stark departure from Thursday, when a sharply divided JFAC deadlocked on pay raises for state employees, including K-12 teachers, administrators and classified employees and higher education staff. The committee also failed to agree on a plan for state employee benefits, and an overall revenue forecast — the bottom-line number that will decide how much the state spends in the next budget year, which begins on July 1.

Little has proposed 5% pay raises, and that remains on hold for the indefinite future.

“At this point there is no plan, but we have options,” said Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, JFAC’s co-chair.

However, the K-12 maintenance budget continues a raft of line items. This list includes $36.5 million for classroom technology, $13.75 million for professional development, and $4.8 million for English language learner programs.

The budget also would provide K-12 schools $23,472 in discretionary funds for each “support unit,” a measure roughly equal to a classroom. Schools would also receive $20,150 per support unit for health benefits. These dollar figures are unchanged from this year’s budget.

All of the maintenance budget bills will have to pass the House and Senate. After that, JFAC will write followup budget bills that include any new programs.

Survey: Increasing teacher pay a top education priority for Idahoans

Idahoans’ top education spending priority is increasing teacher pay, according to a statewide survey released Friday. 

Boise State University’s School of Public Service each year polls Idaho residents on their public policy preferences. The latest survey was conducted in November, and Boise State researchers announced the results Friday at the Statehouse. 

Survey respondents were asked to select their top priority from a list of K-12 school expenses, and increasing teacher salaries was the most popular response. Improving school facilities was a distant second followed by directing tax dollars to private or religious education and school safety measures. 

Gov. Brad Little this legislative session proposed raises for K-12 teachers, administrators and staff totaling about $84 million.

Here was the breakdown in priorities among survey respondents: 

• Increasing teacher salaries — 47.5%. 
• Improving school buildings and facilities — 19.8%.
• Allowing tax dollars to be used to pay for private and religious education — 14.9%. 
• Funding school safety measures — 7.9%.
• Not sure — 9.9%.

This was BSU’s 10th annual Idaho Public Policy Survey. Researchers polled 1,000 residents in 42 of Idaho’s 44 counties. The sample was weighted to represent demographics, and results have a 3.1% margin of error. 

“We want to know what Idahoans think and provide that information to the public and policymakers,” said Matthew May, survey research director for BSU’s School of Public Service. 

Topline survey results show that Idahoans are more positive about the economy than they were last year, and education remains their top directive for the Legislature. Education received a score of 79.1% among issues that should be important to lawmakers. Jobs and the economy (70.7%) ranked second, followed by health care (68.6%).

Ratings of Idaho’s public schools remained steady compared to last year’s survey. Most respondents rated the quality of K-12 public schools as good (27%) or fair (36%), while nearly a quarter (23%) offered a poor rating.

Does the public support private school choice? 

It depends on how you ask the question.

The BSU survey again asked about private school choice, although in a different way than in the past. The latest survey asked respondents whether they support “the use of tax dollars to help pay for a private or religious education if a parent chooses not to send their child to a local public school.” 

Most respondents (53.3%) said they oppose the idea, while a minority (37%) said they support it. Support was divided along partisan lines, with most Republicans (52%) in favor followed by independents (36%) and Democrats (12%). 

The survey also asked about means testing for a private school choice program — limiting access to households earning less than $75,000 annually — and respondents split with a slight majority saying they would support income restrictions.

One high-profile private school choice bill is on the table. Sponsored by Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, and Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, it would create a $50 million refundable tax credit program offering $5,000 for private school and home-school expenses. Families earning less than 300% of the federal poverty limit — $93,600 annually for a family of four — would have first dibs on the state funds.

Last year’s BSU survey asked whether respondents would support a plan allowing parents to take $8,000 “out of the public school system and use it to enroll their child in a private or religious school.” Nearly half of respondents (49%) said they would support such a plan while 41% opposed it, but respondents were less likely to support a plan that would decrease school district budgets. 

These diverging survey results are consistent with other polling of Idaho residents in recent years. Altogether, polling has shown that public support for private school choice depends on how the question is framed. When asked whether they support tax dollars going to private education, Idahoans tend to say “no,” but they also tend to show support when asked about a more specific private school funding mechanism. 

“The details of a policy of this nature matter greatly,” May said. “When you put those details (in a survey question), you’re more likely to receive popular support, because it’s a mitigating factor impacting the underlying issue. But it doesn’t necessarily change their opinion on the core concept.”

Campus concealed carry bill reemerges

A lawmaker who represents the University of Idaho campus is again pursuing a campus concealed carry bill.

The bill would ban colleges from restricting “the otherwise lawful possession, carrying or transporting of firearms or ammunition by any person carrying a concealed weapons permit.”

The Senate State Affairs Committee introduced the bill, sponsored by Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola.

The bill’s prospects are unclear. Foreman sponsored identical bills in 2023 and 2024, and neither got out of a Senate committee.