Can the State of Idaho Reduce its Budget by $200 million?
The legislature is faced with a growing shortfall in state tax revenues. I would like to offer suggestions on how to reduce costs by $200 million or 8 percent of the total state general fund budget. I chosen an organized approach to approach with this problem.
1. Choose a target number - $200 million
2. Determine the percent of the budget – 8 percent
3. Determine the size of the 5 areas of the budget.
a. K-12 - $1.2 billion
b. Other education - $360 million
c. DHW – $463 million
d. Public safety - $222 million
e. All other - $120 million
4. Reduce each area of the budget by 8 percent to establish a baseline goal for each budget.
a. K-12 - $96 million
b. Other education - $28 million
c. DHW - $36 million
d. Public safety - $17 million
e. All other - $9.6 million
5. Start identifying targeted budget cuts to try to reach goals in section 4. I started with k-12 education and have developed several strategies for comparison purposes only. The following options are designed to help understand the ramifications of different approached to budget cutting ideas with the hope that the least harmful can be identified.
Option #1: Fund a six week summer kindergarten program to get kids ready for school rather than the current 36 week program. Potential Savings - $50 million
Option #2: Reduce wages and benefits to all teachers and administrators by 12 percent – Potential Savings $89 million.
Option #3: Create a statewide medical insurance pool for teachers that had a high deductible policy with a Health Savings Account – Potential Savings $15 to $35 million
Option #4: Cut technology improvements by 25 to 50 percent – Potential Savings $6 to $12 million
Option #5: Cut all or some teacher aids – Savings unknown
Option #6: Increase teacher size by 2 – Potential Savings $100 million
Option #7: Encourage motivated students to take enough summer classes to graduate one year early – Potential Savings between $13 million and $90 million
Which of these options, in your opinion, should be pursued and considered?
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How much savings could be found by cutting all the legislator's pay and benefits by the same percentage that the rest of the state employees and educators have endured? It was said that doing so would that make it too difficult to be a legislator? Try being a starting teacher (or any teacher under 7 years experience that is paid like a starting teacher) who is so poorly paid they qualify for welfare? (the same programs you suggest to cut as well) I would not be poor enough to qualify for assistance, execpt for the fact that the state keeps cutting my wage. Wyoming starts teachers over at over 40,000. You don't think this is a drain on quality teachers? And no... I am not a union member, or a democrat.
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