Lawmakers wrap up with no Medicaid answer

The Idaho Legislature officially wrapped up business Wednesday in an eventful day that included the signing of library legislation and the contentious transportation budget — but lawmakers left without addressing one of Gov. Brad Little’s top concerns of the late-session.

HB 398

Little on April 4 signed HB 398, which requires legislative approval for the Medicaid Division to seek plan amendments and federal waivers to make changes to the program and services. But on Monday, Little sent a transmittal letter outlining his deep concerns that the bill may unintentionally halt progress on some programs, which could disrupt behavioral health services and payments to substance use and psychiatric residential treatment centers and to intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The bill went into effect with his signature.

Several health care providers wrote to Little with similar concerns over the bill.

Little urged the passage of a trailer bill, which is legislation that follows and amends previous bills, to fix the issue by clarifying HB 398 wouldn’t affect these programs that were already underway and budgeted for. There was an effort to create a new trailer bill, but no committee meeting was held and no legislation was officially introduced.

Exactly what happened and why is unclear.

Bill sponsor Rep. Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, said she had a draft and argued the governor’s office wouldn’t agree to it.

“He wouldn’t make a deal,” Blanksma said. “We did everything we could.”

Blanksma provided the draft legislation that would have changed the text of the bill to clarify that the provisions “shall not affect any state plan amendment or waiver program funded pursuant to section 56-265 (provider payment section of the Public Assistance Law), Idaho Code, statutorily authorized, in the process of being implemented, or subject to renewal” as of the effective date.

The governor’s office has a different take.

“Upon return from recess, the Legislature did not hold any hearings and never printed a bill,” Little’s Press Secretary Madison Hardy said. “Therefore, there was no bill for Governor Little to evaluate.”

Hardy said there were multiple versions of the bill that the office felt would have addressed Little’s concerns, but nothing came to fruition.

House Speaker Mike Moyle told reporters at an end-of-session news conference Wednesday that the Senate may have been involved in the trailer bill’s disrupted path.

“We were trying to see if there was a path forward with the governor and the Senate,” he said. “As we got toward the end, the Senate made clear that there wasn’t a path forward right now on that bill.”

Senate Pro-Tem Chuck Winder said all he knew was that there were multiple proposals and the House and governor’s office couldn’t agree.

“There was no agreement between the House and the governor’s office,” Winder said. “It didn’t have anything to do with the Senate.”

There’s disagreement over whether the bill was needed to save the programs. Blanksma said her interpretation of the language was that, as written, these in-progress amendments and programs could continue. She said attorneys she spoke to from some of the stakeholders agreed.

“It’s our opinion that everyone has been grandfathered in, and that all those payments should be released,” Blanksma said.

Hardy said in a statement that it would work with the Department of Health and Welfare and the attorney general to “navigate the challenges of interpreting the ambiguities of House Bill 398.”

Little did not rule out calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session “as needed.”

“Governor Little fully supports and remains committed to delivering critical Medicaid services to vulnerable Idahoans, such as the behavioral health services he advocated for last session,” Hardy wrote.

LIBRARIES, BUDGETS AND MORE

Just minutes before his deadline to act on HB 710 before it went into effect without his signature, Little opted to sign the library bill Wednesday morning.

The bill requires public and school libraries to have a form available that anyone may use to request that a material be moved to an adults-only section if they think it includes sexual content that is “harmful to minors,” which is defined in Idaho’s obscenity code. If the material isn’t moved within 60 days, individuals may file a civil lawsuit for $250 and other damages and fees against the school or library district.

Supporters said it would protect children from sexual content and opponents said it would be logistically burdensome to implement and would invite litigation.

The bill faced heated debate and overwhelming opposition in public testimony. Little wrote in his transmittal letter to lawmakers that he believes the “greater harm” to children is what’s accessible to them on phones and other digital devices. He also said he would be “watching the implementation and outcomes of this legislation very closely.”

After lawmakers recessed last Wednesday for a week, the fates of two budgets were still up in the air.

Legislators were unsure if the governor would approve or veto the Idaho Transportation Department budget, which faced opposition from those who opposed its language that killed a planned sale.

The budget very narrowly passed both chambers. To override a veto, the Legislature would need a two-thirds majority vote. And lawmakers would likely have to stay if Little decided to reject it.

Little decided not to veto the bill, but he didn’t sign it either. He let it go into effect without a signature.

He wrote in a transmittal letter that the language unwinding the sale “unfairly cancels an agreed upon sales process, causing future reputational risk for the state of Idaho.”

The developers who planned to purchase the old ITD campus on State Street said in a statement they plan to pursue legal action against the state.

The House also last week failed to act on one final budget for the Division of Welfare, so that was on its calendar Wednesday. The appropriation just barely skated through before adjournment.

The new division budget removed a summer food program for students, which senators opposed when they killed the first version of the budget on the floor.

The House voted 33-32, with five members absent, to approve SB 1460. The Senate had voted 22-12 with one member absent on April 3 to approve the new budget without the program, which would have cost $595,300 in state general funds.

Lawmakers also had another loose end before adjournment, which was the reported budget shortfall the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation had said it might face without a supplemental appropriation. This shortfall came to light April 3.

Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee Co-Chairperson Rep. Wendy Horman later said she had heard from vendors that the reported shortfall didn’t match what they thought was owed. The Legislative Services Office requested invoices from the division to determine how much was really owed.

On Wednesday afternoon, Horman on the House floor said that the committee anticipates the division has enough money to make “most if not all of the payments that they are owed.”

“No further action is required of this body,” she said.

In an email from Legislative Services Budget Manager Keith Bybee to the JFAC co-chairpersons, he said the review of the division’s finances found it had around $2.4 million still available to spend on trustee and benefit payments from the prior year’s appropriation. Bybee wrote that expenditures over the past four years have averaged around $1.6 million in trustee and benefit payments.

If bills come in over what they still have, then the division will need to hold payments until the next fiscal year.

“The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation will have time to review expenditures over the course of the summer, and when making the FY 2026 budget request, can evaluate whether they will need additional appropriation for programmatic growth in either FY 2025 or FY 2026, Bybee wrote. “They will have to manage operations and their budget differently than they have in the past, with the Division of Financial Management’s help.”

The House and Senate adjourned Wednesday afternoon, officially ending the session in what’s known as “sine die.” Unless there’s a special session called in the interim, the Legislature won’t return until the 2025 session in January.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on X @EyeOnBoiseGuido.