JFAC slashes IDLA budget while largely sparing virtual charters
Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on March 20, 2026
BOISE, Idaho — Budget-setting lawmakers Friday cut more than half of the annual budget for the Idaho Digital Learning Alliance (IDLA) while sparing virtual charter schools from the bulk of cuts recommended by the governor.
Lawmakers have been debating cuts to virtual education for months after Gov. Brad Little recommended a $10 million reduction to IDLA — the state’s online learning platform that offers virtual courses to public schools — and a $23 million cut to virtual charter schools.
On Friday, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) approved $13.5 million in cuts to IDLA and $3 million in cuts to virtual charter schools. The budget recommendations — which still have to be approved by the full House and Senate — followed a flurry of conflicting motions and a contentious debate that focused on whether JFAC should be making policy decisions.
The IDLA cut preempted a bill that’s pending in the House Education Committee. The education policy committee has considered a handful of bills this session to reform IDLA's state funding formula. The latest stalled Thursday, but House Education is scheduled to consider Rep. Douglas Pickett's bill again Monday.
JFAC went ahead with the cuts anyway.
Sen. C. Scott Grow, co-chairman of the budget committee, said Friday that Pickett’s bill is poised to fail in House Education, and JFAC’s co-chairs were asked to take up the IDLA budget Friday as the session winds down. He declined to tell Idaho Education News who made the request.
“There are lots of names and lots of folks that are asking us to do things,” said Grow, R-Eagle. “I'm not going to name one person.”
Rep. James Petzke, who sponsored a separate bill that would have cut IDLA’s budget by a little more than $9 million, urged JFAC to hold off on the budget Friday. “We don't have to do this bill today,” said Petzke, R-Meridian. “We can wait on the policy committees to do something.”
But the budget committee voted 12-8 to approve Rep. Elaine Price’s motion to take $13.5 million bite out of IDLA’s state appropriation for fiscal year 2027.
Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, initially proposed a $15 million reduction, which narrowly failed. She also sponsored a policy bill earlier this session that would have completely defunded IDLA. Price said Friday that she didn’t feel like the governor’s $10 million recommendation was enough.
Jeff Simmons, IDLA’s superintendent, said after Friday’s meeting that the platform will have to cut its enrollment in half if the $13.5 million cut stands. “That will touch every school," he said. "There's just no way we can prevent that.”
Public schools leaders, particularly from rural districts, in recent weeks asked the House Education Committee not to make deep cuts to IDLA. Districts rely on the platform to supplement their curriculum with online courses that they can't offer.
Virtual schools spared from deeper cuts. JFAC also cut $3 million from online public schools, a fraction of the governor’s recommendation.
Little proposed a $23 million cut to virtual schools after a December report from the Legislature’s research arm scrutinized spending and student performance at the state’s largest online school, Idaho Home Learning Academy.
The report, from the nonpartisan Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE), highlighted $20 million in “supplemental learning funds” that went to private education vendors, which passed on most of the taxpayer money to parents. Parents spent much of the supplemental funds on computers, lessons and other education-related expenses, but some of it went to private school classes and other questionable purchases like entertainment devices and household items.
JFAC members considered five motions proposing virtual school cuts Friday. They rejected four of them, which would have taken between $8 million and $18.5 million in classified staff funding from virtual charters and traditional districts with online programs.
Then the committee approved a motion from Sens. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins, and Codi Galloway, R-Boise, to cut $3 million in discretionary funding for virtual charter schools.
Galloway said it would be unfair to protect traditional public schools from budget cuts while giving virtual schools a “haircut.” Meanwhile, a bill that already passed this session added “sideboards and protections” in response to the OPE study, she said.
House Bill 624, which passed unanimously before Little signed it into law, restricts the use of supplemental learning funds to education-related expenses. It also tightened state oversight of education service providers, the private vendors that contract with virtual schools and collect millions in taxpayer dollars.
JFAC approved the $3 million cut on a 12-7 vote.
Both the IDLA and virtual schools budgets now go to either the full Senate or full House. The budget bills must pass both chambers before they go to the governor’s desk.
