BOISE, ID – Experienced members of the Idaho Senate from both major political parties have now publicly called out the Idaho Legislature for not cutting its own funding at the same levels as it did for most other state agencies and departments.

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, and Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, have both called on the Idaho Legislature to reduce its own funding levels as it approves budget cuts for almost all other state agencies and departments this year.

While debating a House Bill 848, the fiscal year 2027 budget for the legislative branch of government on Wednesday, Wintrow said some of the funding for the legislative branch of government arrives via cash transfers from outside of the budget process. That includes funding for the legislative account, which pays for any necessary expenses of the Legislature, and the legislative legal defense fund, which pays for outside legal representation.

Wintrow said there is a cash balance of about $4.9 million in those two accounts. If the Idaho Legislature applied the same 5% cut to its own funds in fiscal year 2027 as it did to the budgets for most other state agencies and programs, Wintrow said that would generate an additional savings of nearly $500,000 that could go toward balancing the state budget.

In an interview Thursday afternoon at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, Wintrow said the Idaho Senate did not take up her suggestion.

“I just think it sends a bad message, right, kind of do as I say not as I do,” Wintrow told the Sun. “Our parents taught us role modeling in hopes that we would take that on. So if we’re saying everybody’s got to give a little, my point was, hey, we can give a little too, and here’s a good place to get it.”

Wintrow has also called for pulling some money out of state rainy day reserve accounts to stabilize the budget and avoid additional cuts to core services and programs the state provides.

Guthrie didn’t highlight the specific legislative funds that Wintrow did, but he delivered a similar message about the Idaho Legislature requiring most other state agencies to cut their budgets.

“You know, we talked about tightening our belts, but that is not the case,” Guthrie said in a March 12 debate on the Senate floor. “We’re not tightening our belts at all. We’re not taking a pay cut; we’re not compromising our benefits. We are tightening the belts of Idaho citizens, and the feedback from my constituents is that they are not happy about it.”

Wintrow and Guthrie aren’t alone in calling for the Idaho Legislature to accept and absorb budget cuts like other state agencies and departments.

On March 16, Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 125, which encourages the Citizens Committee on Legislative Compensation to reduce the compensation and expense allowances for the Idaho Legislature during the 2027 and 2028 legislative sessions.

The fiscal note Cook attached to Senate Concurrent Resolution 125 directly addresses the budget cuts other state agencies and departments are enduring.

“These budget reductions, along with the decision to provide no salary increases for state employees, place real financial pressures on Idaho’s citizens and public workforce,” Cook’s statement of purpose reads. “This resolution expresses the sense of the Legislature that elected officials should also share in those sacrifices.”

To be clear, the Idaho Legislature is taking some cuts. Through House Bill 848, the fiscal year 2026 maintenance budget for the legislative branch, legislators reduced funding for two offices that support the Idaho Legislature – the Idaho Legislative Services Office and the Office of Performance Evaluations.

House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, has also asked the state to reduce funding transfers for the Idaho House of Representatives this year, Division of Financial Management officials told the Sun.

But Wintrow, Guthrie and Cook are asking the Idaho Legislature to cut its own funding – not just funding for offices and agencies that support the Idaho Legislature.

Staff positions for Idaho Legislature have grown, and would continue to grow under one proposal, as other agencies cut

Another area where the legislative branch of government has grown, but not cut so far, is personnel.

The number of full-time positions in the legislative branch has increased from 74 in fiscal year 2021 to 86 in fiscal year 2027, according to a budget and personnel analysis the Idaho Capital Sun requested from the Idaho Division of Financial Management. That’s a staffing increase of 16.2% for the Idaho Legislature, which outpaces staffing growth for the rest of state government.

Over that same time period, the amount of full time positions in the executive branch of government – excluding higher education – increased by just 7.4% according to the Idaho Division of Financial Management analysis.

While the Idaho Legislature reduced the number of full-time positions across state government by a combined total of 110 positions, a bill under consideration, House Bill 836, seeks to take vacant positions away from other state agencies and then transfer one-third of those eliminated positions to be added to the legislative branch. That bill was sent out for possible changes March 13.

Pay for elected state legislators is another budget area that has increased in recent years but, unless Cook’s resolution is adopted, is not being cut this year.

In November 2024, the Citizen’s Committee on Legislative Compensation voted to increase pay for legislators from $19,913 to $25,000 per year, the Sun previously reported. (Under the Idaho Constitution, legislators don’t establish their own pay, the citizens committee does).

From fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2027, the amount of money spent on legislative pay has increased by 33.6%, according to the analysis performed by the Idaho Division of Financial Management.

Republican officials have said this year’s state budget cuts are necessary to pay to conform to federal tax cuts President Donald Trump signed into law last summer and due to ongoing revenue uncertainty in Idaho.

This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.