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The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted Friday morning on the first draft of its maintenance budgets, albeit not without a lot of confusion over process and procedure. The 10 spending bills headed to the House and Senate floor incorporate the 5% budget reductions JFAC passed last week, an additional 2% on top of the governor's holdbacks.

This week on Idaho Reports...

It’s a year filled with difficult decisions, and some Idahoans are begging the state not to cut Medicaid any more than it already has. This week, Melissa Davlin sits down with Kristyn Herbert, Julie McConnel, Ned Fowkes, and Dana Gover – four Idahoans who rely on Medicaid for themselves or their children – to discuss proposed cuts to balance the budget.

HERBERT: "I am worried that if home and community-based services are cut, I will be homeless because I refuse to go to a nursing home or an institution. I'd rather die."

MCCONNEL: "I want a good life, a good future for my boys. I want them to live. I don't want them to just exist. I want them to live a life where they're integrated in their community, they have relationships, they have opportunities."

FOWKES: "As an aging parent, we've done what we can do. The model of care that has come along has been miraculous for us. It saved our lives, and provided Eva with a quality of life."

GOVER: "I have a job. I've always worked, and I volunteer. Without those services, I would not be independent. Medicaid is like – It's my independence. It helps me be free, be able to contribute to the community."

Then, Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee co-chairs Sen. C. Scott Grow and Rep. Josh Tanner and committee members Rep. Rod Furniss and Rep. Brooke Green join Melissa Davlin to discuss what she heard from Medicaid users and the broader budget.

"So, we as a work group get together and say this program is super important, let's fund it. But now we have to take that enhancement to the body, and then it has to pass out of JFAC, and then it has to go to the floor," Green said. "Enhancement bills, the bills that apparently 'grow government,' don't oftentimes pass — and in an election year, it's going to be incredibly difficult for my colleagues to make some of those votes."

"The 1% and 2% that we've added here for 2026 and 2027, we are not increasing any cuts to Medicaid," said Grow. "The executive branch and those departments and agencies, they made decisions where they were going to cut. That's their first cut. We, as the Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee, have an opportunity to look at that again."

"We saw what the Democrats did, bringing a lot of people together, trying to create this fear aspect of 'what is going on,' when some of the areas that they're really fearful of are not even areas that are going to get looked at," Tanner said. "A lot of people that are the most scared are the ones with the home and community-based services — which, talking with both Health & Welfare committees, is not one that is even being looked at."

"They need to know that Idaho's not going to turn away. We're going to make sure their backs are covered. We're going to make sure they're taken care of. At the same time, we need to make sure that we can pay our bills, and we'll do that" said Furniss. "I want to reiterate that we're in a cash flow crunch. We're not in a spending crunch."

Foundational Funding | February 13, 2026

• VETO POLITICS: Gov. Brad Little’s team is raising the alarm about lawmakers who are slashing budgets deeper than Little wanted. But would he veto the deeper cuts? In the past, Little has been known to sign bills that he didn’t necessarily like, occasionally attaching a letter to express his dissatisfaction. [🔗 Idaho Statesman]

• STATE BUDGETS: Idaho Democrats made a public plea Thursday to dip into reserve funds and vote down additional across-the-board budget cuts they warn would hurt the state and its residents for years to come. [🔗 Idaho Capital Sun]

• ISU LAYOFFS: Idaho State University is laying off 45 people and enacting significant structural changes impacting four colleges to address an $8 million deficit from the state's mandate to reduce its budget by 3%. [🔗 Idaho State Journal]

• ACCREDITATION: North Idaho College remains accredited and has returned to good standing, four years after its first warning from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and University about local board governance. [🔗 Coeur d'Alene Press]

• LIBRARY LAWSUIT: A panel of Ninth Circuit federal judges ruled the Children’s School and Library Protection Act is “overbroad on its face” and “threatens to regulate a substantial amount of expressive activity” in violation of the First Amendment, sending the case to continue in district court. [🔗 Valley Lookout]

• POCATELLO PRIMARY: David Worley, an Idaho Army National Guard officer who claims he faced religious discrimination and faced Sen. James Ruchti last election, announced he is running against Sen. Jim Guthrie. [🔗 Idaho Education News]

• DEMOCRATIC DISTRICT: Sen. Ali Rabe announced she is not seeking re-election and is endorsing her seatmate Rep. Soñia Galaviz. [🔗 Idaho Education News]

• TRIBAL LANDS: Stimson Lumber Company recently sold 12,750 acres to the Coeur d'Alene Tribe inside their reservation boundaries. [🔗 Coeur d'Alene Press]

• GRATITUDE VISIT: A Ukrainian mayor whose town went without running water for more than two years during the war will visit Pocatello on Friday to express his gratitude for local fundraising efforts that funded solar panels for the town’s water wells, restoring clean water to roughly 5,000 residents. [🔗 East Idaho News]

• JUST FOR FUN: The Ranch Podcast isn’t one of the top results when you search for Idaho on podcast platforms — in fact, the show doesn’t come up under the term on Spotify or Apple Podcasts at all. But in just a few years, creator and host Matt Todd has turned it into the most prolific podcast about Idaho. [🔗 Idaho Statesman]

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