BOISE, ID – When offered one of the first opportunities to add back state funding that had been cut, Republicans on the Idaho Legislature’s powerful budget committee voted down a proposal to restore funding for tuition benefits for Idaho Army National Guard members.
The Idaho Military Division had requested $190,800 in general fund budget enhancements for the Idaho State Education Assistance program to restore funding that Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee cut on Feb. 13.
The assistance program provides up to $8,000 per fiscal year for tuition and fees for Idaho National Guard members to use at an Idaho-based higher education institution.
On Jan. 29, Maj. Gen. Timothy J. Donnellan, adjutant general and commander of the Idaho National Guard, told the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, that tuition assistance is an important and popular benefit that helps recruit National Guard members and gives them an incentive to stay in Idaho.
Donnellan used simple, plain language to tell JFAC members that he worried additional cuts to the tuition assistance program would break faith with members of the National Guard who have been promised assistance with tuition and benefits.
“We had to reduce that amount that we are offering to our soldiers and airmen who enlist,” Donnellan told JFAC members Jan. 29. “That’s a very critical function, by statute, that we offer that for our new enlistees. Many of our enlistees join the National Guard (because) one, they want to stay in Idaho but two, because Idaho offers this state education assistance. So we’ve had to reduce that fund. I am concerned if we were to reduce it further that we would break faith with our soldiers and airmen who have enlisted.”
The additional funding request was for $190,800 out of a nearly $6 billion state budget, but 11 JFAC Republicans voted against the funding while only seven JFAC members supported it.
Republicans who voted against providing funding for military scholarships are:
- Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle
- Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle
- Sen. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg
- Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins
- Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls
- Sen. Codi Galloway, R-Boise
- Rep. Steven Miller, R-Fairfield
- Rep Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow
- Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene
- Rep. Chris Bruce, R-Kuna
- Rep. Kyle Harris, R-Lewiston
All three JFAC Democrats supported the funding, as did Republican Sens. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, and Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, and Reps. James Petzke, R-Meridian, and Rod Furniss, R-Rigby.
“I’d just like to provide the perspective that what we are voting here today is $190,000 to support the education of those who have taken an oath to give their lives for ours,” said Woodward, who supported the funding request. He made a last-minute motion to force a vote on the funding when other committee members appeared ready to forego a vote on the proposal Friday.
Funding for National Guard tuition assistance could still be brought back up
Moments after they rejected the increased funding request for tuition assistance, JFAC members voted to hold the budget enhancement proposal for tuition assistance “subject to the call of the chair.”
That means the request for tuition assistance is not technically dead and could be brought back to JFAC before the 2026 legislative session adjourns.
However, Petzke expressed concern that if JFAC members did not vote to approve the funding for tuition assistance on Friday that they may not get a second chance to consider the funding.
“The reality is with this if we support this motion there is no guarantee that it comes back because it is at the discretion of the chairs, so I want to vote on this,” Petzke said.
Before the vote, Miller told JFAC members he was concerned about adding funding back in because JFAC just voted Feb. 13 to approve budget cuts totaling 5% for most state agencies and departments. Miller asked where the $190,000-plus would come from and if JFAC would be cutting another budget by $190,000 to make room for funding tuition assistance.
“It’s not that this isn’t an important budget item; it’s not that this isn’t a lot of money,” Miller said. “The point is, if we continue down this road – and I’ve seen it happen before – then in about three or four weeks there is a sudden realization that our target funds, our (budget ending balance) aren’t going to be there because they are all important budgets. They are all important to someone. And so the idea of setting these budget targets, in my mind, was to wind up with an ending number that we felt like was going to be a reasonable carryover into the following year.”
“I am going to object to every increase that comes down here, I’m going to ask the motion maker where that money is coming from, because if we don’t figure that out as a committee, if we don’t figure that out as leadership, we are going to have problems at the end of this year,” Miller added.
While Miller objected to increased funding for military tuition assistance, he did not raise any objections to increasing funding for the Idaho State Tax Commission to comply with President Donald Trump’s new tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in a separate vote conducted less than an hour later.
Galloway and Harris said they voted no to the funding increase for tuition assistance out of concerns over the process with JFAC and its working groups. Galloway and Harris said they were trying to obtain additional information about the request, but they did not say what information they were seeking or ask any questions of Donnellan, who was in attendance Friday.
Zuiderveld voted against providing the increased funding for tuition assistance after criticizing the Idaho Military Division for not finding somewhere else to cut.
“Where could they have cut besides that?” Zuiderveld asked. “And a lot of these decisions that were made by the different agencies to me it feels kinda like we are being gaslit because they are angry they have to cut on a lot of these things.”
Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, supported adding funding back in for tuition assistance for military members. Wintrow also expressed concern that JFAC members and the public have been told repeatedly by Tanner in recent weeks that JFAC’s working groups would have the ability to add funding back in that was cut.
“When we were voting on all the maintenance budgets I kept being reassured that even though we were making a decision then we could always adjust these budgets as we go forward and I am already seeing the resistance to doing so,” Wintrow said.
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