Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed into law a bill that cuts funding for most state agencies and departments by 4% in the current fiscal year 2026, Little said in a written statement issued Tuesday.
“Idahoans expect their state government to operate efficiently and effectively, and the balanced budget we approved for the current fiscal year delivers on both fronts,” Little wrote in a statement released Tuesday. “I appreciate my partners in the Legislature for working closely with my office to right-size state government to match taxpayers’ means while minimizing the impact of spending reductions.”
Little signed the bill late Monday. Little had until 8:15 a.m. Tuesday to act on the bill or it would have become law without his signature, state records show.
Senate Bill 1331 reduces the general fund portion of the state budget by $131.3 million and reduces 110 full-time positions across state government. Senate Bill 1331 is also known as the 2026 Idaho Rescissions Act.
The act essentially takes the 3% budget cuts Little enacted last summer to avoid a budget shortfall and adds on an additional 1% budget cut for most state agencies and departments. The Idaho Legislature exempted the K-12 public school system, the Medicaid program, Idaho State Police and the Idaho Department of Correction from the additional 1% cut – meaning those agencies will see their budgets cut by 3%.
Budget cuts have been one the defining – and most controversial elements – of the 2026 legislative session. Legislators are cutting 4% for most state agencies in fiscal year 2026 and 5% for most state agencies in fiscal year 2027 to pay for conforming with federal tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and due to ongoing revenue uncertainty.
Last week, House Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian, called the budget cuts, “a crappy bill that we have to vote on, but it’s a necessary bill.”
Little’s budget chief, Idaho Division of Financial Management Administrator Lori Wolff, has said the additional 1% across-the-board budget cut is unnecessary and risks cutting essential programs and services too deeply. Wolff has said several times this session that Little submitted a balanced budget proposal in conjunction with his State of the State address in January.
Little signed the additional budget cuts into law after the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee agreed to restore some of the funding cuts that Wolff warned were too deep and drastic.
Those restorations included restoring money to help hire seasonal firefighters to fight wildfires, maintaining career-technical education programs for rural schools, restoring some funding for college tuition benefits for Idaho National Guard members and bolstering funding for the Idaho State Tax Commission to process tax returns and comply with federal tax changes from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The 2026 Idaho Rescissions Act passed the Idaho Senate by a single vote, 18-17, on March 2.
On March 6, the Idaho House of Representatives voted 48-22 to pass the bill
If he had vetoed the bill instead of signing it, it would have taken a two-thirds supermajority of both chambers to override Little’s veto.
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