Several Health and Welfare budget bills passed through the powerful Joint Finance-Appropriations committee Monday morning, but Democrats worry two of those budget items approved in committee go into policy territory, which isn't JFAC's job.
Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, said she's never seen a budget bill actually overturn policy in her six years on the committee. She said that's essentially what the intent language in the committee's Division of Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention budget does.
Democrats also take issue with the intent language listed in the Division of Public Health budget. The legislative intent for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund says the appropriated money cannot be used to support instruction, programs or other activities that involve the participation of students, faculty, staff, or volunteers and that deal with subjects including sexual health.
"As members of JFAC, we try to stay in our lanes. We're a budgetary committee," Ward-Engelking said. "We don't do policy in JFAC."
In Ward-Engelking's mind, that's a policy decision that should happen in the germane committee, like the Health and Welfare committees, not the budget-setting committee.
"It actually wrote down what you could and couldn't use those funds for, and that is usually considered a policy piece," she said.
Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, also on JFAC, said it certainly could be considered policy.
"The Department of Health and Welfare was going through the back door, talking about sex education, and it was more than just the sex education that you and I had in our fifth grade. It went way beyond that," Cook said. "Because it was money being spent there, we thought that you know what, let's just nip it right here and be done with it... We're kind of late in the ball game in the session. Somebody could certainly jump on and say, hey let's make it a policy, and go ahead and do it. I think that would be great."
The intent language in the budget bill for the Division of Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention says funds appropriated for the state opioid response grant for naloxone can only be available to first responders in Idaho.
Ward-Engelking said that would essentially overturn policy the legislature passed previously to make naloxone - the antidote to an opioid overdose - more widely accessible. Under current Idaho law, pharmacists and other health professionals can prescribe and dispense naloxone to anyone at risk for an opioid-related overdose or to anyone who may encounter someone at risk of an overdose.
"I want to err on side of making sure we can save somebody's life, and this, we're not sure a first responder gets there in time sometimes, and so this is very, very frightening to me," she said.
Cook said part of the argument for putting this intent language in was, "'Are we encouraging people to take this drug and to have naloxone on their hand just in case?'" Cook said. What this is is now we're saying is no, let's go through the first responders."
Ward-Engelking says at least in her time on JFAC, she hasn't seen them overturn policy.
"We may say, you know if it's not spent that way, that there might be an audit, things like that. We do accountability pieces with intent language to make sure that the money is spent appropriately," Ward-Engelking said.
"We've got policy in here with JFAC, and if you've got policy, we generally don't take public input in JFAC, so I personally believe that it was okay with what we're doing with this money. I think we were fine. And if we need public input, then call your representatives, call your senators and say, yes or no or whatever, and then when it comes to the floor, that's when we'll vote on it and go from there," Cook said.
JFAC also approved a budget Monday that would cut pandemic response grant funding in half from roughly $32 million to about $16 million.
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