April 8, 2026 - OPINION: Idaho got through this session. Now let’s do the hard work.

Another session is in the books. And like most sessions, this one deserves an honest accounting.

I've been in Idaho government long enough to know what a real budget crisis looks like. During the great recession, when the bottom fell out of the national economy in 2008-2009, Idaho didn't have the luxury of arguing about 1 or 2 percent. We were cutting 30 percent. Agencies absorbed blow after blow. Programs were eliminated entirely. State employees went without raises for years. We made it through because leaders were willing to make brutal, specific decisions and own them publicly. That experience shaped how I think about every budget conversation since.

So let me offer some perspective: an additional 1 to 2 percent reduction is not a fiscal emergency. Idaho's economy is growing. Families are still moving here. Businesses are still investing here. Our reserves are intact. We have options.

What concerns me is not the size of the cuts. It's the method and reason for the cuts.

When you apply a uniform percentage reduction to every agency in state government, you are making a choice to avoid making choices. You are saying that a dollar spent on aquifer recharge is as expendable as a dollar spent on administrative overhead. You are saying that a classroom in Caldwell and a redundant program nobody can explain deserve the same treatment. That is not fiscal conservatism, it is fiscal avoidance dressed up as discipline.

This year, Idaho protected some things that matter. The $30 million in water infrastructure funding survived. That's not a small thing. After the 2024 curtailment order rattled the agricultural community, this investment sends the right message: Idaho is serious about its water future. I'm proud that it held.

But the honest truth about this session is that the Legislature took the easy and long road on the budget. In twelve weeks, legislators printed over 700 bills, a workload that demands real prioritization, real judgement, and real engagement with the details of governing. That volume is a reminder of just how much this institution is capable of when it applies itself. Which is exactly why the blunt instrument approach is telling. Legislators choose an across-the-board cut because blunt instruments don't require you to sit across the table from agency directors and tell them why their programs didn't make the cut. They don't require you to defend specific decisions to constituents. They spread accountability so thin that no one is really accountable.

Idaho has a tradition of doing it differently. We set a realistic revenue number first. We make our commitments fit that number. We look at every line and ask what it's delivering. That tradition built one of the most fiscally envied states in the country. We can get back to it.

We did not do that in 2025. We paid the price this year and will again next year.

Over the next eight months, I want to see a genuine line-by-line review of state government. Not a percentage. A real accounting of what is working and what isn't. That is the work elected officials are sent to Boise to do. It is harder than applying a formula. It requires the kind of hard work, research, and political courage that takes time to develop. It also happens to be the only approach that actually serves the people of Idaho.

One hundred and two appropriation bills later, the Legislature ended up close to the Governor's plan that he proposed on day one. Every week of uncertainty cost us trust from the public. While the destination was right, the journey was unnecessarily costly.

Idaho doesn't need performative cuts. It needs leaders willing to do the unglamorous work of governing well. That's the standard I hold myself to, and the one I'll keep holding for everyone in that building.