Rating: –1

Bill Summary:

Senate Bill 1165 appropriates additional funding to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. It increases funding across three divisions: Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention, Mental Health Services, and Psychiatric Hospitalization. For FY 2026, the bill appropriates $4.2 million in combined federal, general, and dedicated funds. It also adjusts FY 2025 budgets by supplementing $16.4 million in new funds and reducing previously allocated amounts by $7 million. The bill permits transfer flexibility between personnel and trustee/benefit payments, includes provisions to prevent automatic backfilling of lost federal dollars with state funds, and contains an emergency clause for the FY 2025 sections.

Reason for Rating:
S1165 reinforces and expands a government-run behavioral health system without offering any structural reforms, privatization efforts, or performance-based accountability. The Idaho Republican Party Platform opposes long-term reliance on federal funding and favors limited government intervention in health care. This bill increases taxpayer-backed expenditures and sustains federal entanglement in Idaho’s core behavioral health functions, running counter to platform values of local control, personal responsibility, and fiscal restraint. It adds to the size and scope of a bureaucratic health infrastructure that should be reined in—not expanded—earning it a negative rating.