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Idaho Legislature’s budget panel approves supplemental funding for McGeachin’s deferred pay [1]
['Clark Corbin', 'More From Author', '- February']
Date: 2023-02-20
The Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee agreed to give new Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke an additional $7,000 in supplemental funding for statewide travel and to backfill the portion of former Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s salary that was deferred to avoid a budget shortfall last year.
On Monday, JFAC voted 19-0 to approve the supplemental budget request, which still needs to be approved by the Idaho House of Representatives, Idaho Senate and Gov. Brad Little.
Bedke requested $5,000 of the supplemental funding request to pay for travel across the state, as needed, to fulfill the duties of his office. The remaining $2,000 went to covering the portion of McGeachin’s salary that was from the previous year’s budget to the current budget year.
Idaho uses a fiscal year calendar that runs from July 1 to June 30 each year. That means Bedke and the other statewide officials who were elected Nov. 8 took office during the middle of the fiscal year and split the fiscal 2023 budget with their predecessors.
Former Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s budget issues began when she was still in office
Concerns over the lieutenant governor’s office budget began during the 2022 fiscal year while McGeachin was in office. McGeachin’s budget trouble began in 2021 when she lost a lawsuit the Idaho Press Club filed seeking the release of public records that McGeachin blocked. Eventually, a district judge ordered McGeachin to release the records related to her education task force and pay the Idaho Press Club $28,973.84 for legal fees. McGeachin asked JFAC to cover her legal expenses a year ago, but JFAC declined. At about that same time, state officials began warning McGeachin she was at risk of running a budget shortfall if she didn’t cut expenses.
To cut McGeachin’s budget expenses, the state deferred $1,713.26 of McGeachin’s salary from the fiscal year 2022 budget to the current fiscal year 2023 budget to help her avoid spending more money than was available in her budget, which is prohibited by the Idaho Constitution. As a result, McGeachin’s final paycheck for the 2022 fiscal year was $20.20 and $1,713.26 was deferred to her Aug. 5 paycheck in the current fiscal year 2023 budget.
The $2,000 JFAC approved Monday effectively backfills the lieutenant governor’s office budget so Bedke’s available budget for payroll isn’t diminished because the state deferred McGeachin’s salary from one year to the next.
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The $7,000 supplemental funding increase represents a small percentage of the lieutenant governor’s office’s $205,000 budget for fiscal year 2023. State records show that McGeachin spent $98,641.49 through Dec. 31, leaving $106,458.51 available of the budget for the remainder of the year — although some payroll and operating expenses from McGeachin’s administration were paid out in January because of the timing of the payments that were made. Bedke was publicly sworn in during ceremonies Jan. 6.
“The annual budget for the Lt. Governor’s office is quite small (at $205,000) as is our staff,” McGeachin wrote in a Dec. 22 email to the Idaho Capital Sun. “Despite media claims to the contrary, my goal was always to keep our spending proportionate to the time period. Based on our current spending and projections for December, we will end the year with at least half of the budget remaining.”
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