Across-the-board cuts or ‘a chainsaw to the budget?’: Idaho budget committee implements one and two percent cuts

BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) – Budget cuts are the talk of the town in Boise, but what lawmakers decide touches every corner of the state.

On Friday, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC), Idaho’s budget-setting committee, ordered one percent cuts for Fiscal Year 2026 and two percent cuts the following year.

This is in addition to the three percent cuts ordered by Governor Little in August 2025.

K-12 schools, the Division of Medicaid, Idaho State Police, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and Idaho Department of Corrections are spared from these further cuts, according to the Idaho Legislative Services Office.

Local News 8 spoke with elected officials in Boise about the impact of these additional cuts.

“Some agencies are a lot more operations verses personnel,” said Idaho Controller Brandon Woolf. “Those that have a heavy personnel budget, it's going to be harder. They're going to have layoffs. There's going to be furloughs or positions vacant for part-time. So it's hitting each agency a little bit different, and that's the key thing to watch.

But JFAC Committee member Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, argued that near across-the-board cuts target muscle and bone, not fat in state government.

"We started looking at ways to make some cuts – not cuts that hurt people, not cuts that will come back in two to four months and cost the state millions of dollars at our jails, and our hospitals, and our emergency centers and all of that," said Senator Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls. "Those aren't real cuts. Those are transfers. I wanted cuts that were real cuts.”

In Friday’s JFAC hearing, Cook referred to the committee’s across-the-board cuts, saying, “That approach is not precision. It is taking a chainsaw to a budget.” 

However, JFAC Co-Chairman Senator C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, disagreed, stating, “This does not in any way prevent the work you’ve been doing to come to fruition. All this is doing is saying, ‘Look, there is a certain level of cuts that would be appropriate at this point in time.'”  

In the end, the committee voted 14-6 and 13-7 to adopt the one and two percent cuts across the majority of state agencies.

We’ll continue to watch the Legislature’s actions and their ramifications throughout this year.

"Obviously, it's a heavy lift for the legislators from JFAC to be able to help identify – is it based just across the top?" said Woolf. "Are they going to make winners and losers?  Are they holding education harmless or this one or Medicaid? Those are the big ones (decisions).”