Governor Little calls on state agencies to reduce budgets

 

Gov. Brad Little is asking state agencies to reduce their budgets, with the exception of K-12 public schools.

In an Oct. 29 memo to state agencies, Little asked directors to pare 1% out of their current year’s budgets and identify another 2% base reduction from their budgets for the coming year.

The governor’s latest guidance to state agencies doesn’t go so far as to impose a holdback, or a mid-year cut, in the state budget. The governor’s office tells the Idaho Press, the rescission and base reduction, are instead part of a “spending reset.”

Agencies have until Nov. 11 to notify the administration of how they’ll make the 1% cut.

The governor says he’ll work with the Legislature to grant as much flexibility to agency heads as possible as they make the cuts, including allowing transfers between items within their budgets.