The Idaho House of Representatives passed a resolution on Friday, March 6, to approve a 4% budget cut to state agencies and departments for the current Fiscal Year 2026. Senate Bill 1331 passed the Idaho Senate on March 2, and now awaits a signature from Gov. Brad Little.
SB 1331 is a 1% addition to Little’s executive order from August 2025 that required all agencies, except for K-12 public schools, to reduce their general fund budget and other appropriations spending by 3%. The University of Idaho saw $5 million in cuts back in August, which has now become $6.7 million as a result of the additional 1% cuts.
Because these cuts affect the current fiscal year, state agencies and departments including UI will have to retroactively free up this additional percentage of their budget by the end of July.
According to the Idaho Capital Sun, prior to the legislature session, Idaho was estimated to end FY 2026 with a deficit around $40.3 million following five years of tax cuts approved by the Idaho Legislature, which reduced Idaho’s revenue by an estimated $4 billion. Increasing the cuts from 3% to 4% reduces the state’s budget by an additional $48 million.
Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to ensure the state passes a balanced budget.
“It’s a crappy bill that we have to vote on, but it’s a necessary bill,” said House Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
The bill passed the house 44-22, but just barely passed the senate at 18-17.
In September, the Idaho Division of Financial Management told state agencies the 3% budget cut would continue into Fiscal Year 2027. While nothing has been voted on yet, the Idaho budget committee proposed for FY2027 maintenance of operation to raise this number to 5%, raising the total budget cuts for UI up to $8.3 million.
UI calculated in October 2025 that it was necessary to lay off 28 essential full-time faculty for FY2027 to reduce the universities budget by $3.1 million. This number may increase in relation to the growing budget cuts expected for FY2026.
On March 4, in response to these budget cuts , UI emailed employees promoting the planned retirement program which allows applicable individuals to reduce their working appointment from full to part time while maintaining the same medical benefits over the course of two years. The university incentivized employees to apply during March to receive a one-time payment equal to two pay periods of base salary in FY2027.
Joshua Reisenfeld can be reached at [email protected].