Idaho finance committee approves cut to key program — apparently without realizing it

Despite Idaho having the fewest medical professionals per capita in the United States, the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee on Tuesday cut funding for graduate medical education that helps train health care workers.

The Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, voted 12-7 to reduce funding for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s health care policy initiatives program in the Division of Public Health Services by a total of $478,600.

After Tuesday’s meeting, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Juliet Charron said the health care policy initiatives program provides funding for two things – graduate medical education and advanced directives. Based on the funding cut, Charron said Health and Welfare would have no choice but to cut funding for graduate medical education.

Legislators were worried about cutting the funding, but it appears they received inaccurate information shortly before they cast their votes.

Sens. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, and Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, expressed concern that the action JFAC was debating could cut graduate medical education, or GME, funding.

“First of all, I feel like I need clarification on that,” Wintrow said during the meeting. “I can’t vote on a budget if that is where it’s coming out of because we already said we are pumping resources into GME. And now if we are kind of sliding in at the 11th hour upstairs when we can barely look at this, I am going to be troubled. I cannot vote for this if I can’t get that answer.”

However, JFAC co-chair Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, stated multiple times that the cuts do not cut graduate medical education.

“It does not,” Tanner said two separate times during Tuesday’s meeting.

“If there is money going out of this to that program, then we have more of a concern with our department because there has never been an authorization from this body that has actually given them authority to actually spend that money in those areas,” Tanner added seconds before JFAC members voted on the budget.

That does not appear to be true.

State records show that in 2017 the Idaho Legislature added a line item and appropriated funding in Senate Bill 1193 to add medical residency seats in the graduate medical education program under the health care policy initiatives heading.

Charron also said after the meeting that the new budget cuts will force the department to cut graduate medical education programs.

Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, made a last-minute effort to avoid cuts that could affect graduate medical education programs, but JFAC members voted down his motion before voting to approve the $478,600 cut as part of the larger budget for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s fiscal year 2027 budget enhancement for the Division of Public Health Services.

In January, the Idaho Capital Sun reported that Idaho has the fewest medical professionals in the country on a per capita basis and would need to add an additional 1,400 medical professionals today just to catch up to the national average. Investing in undergraduate medical education, increasing graduate medical education capacity and increasing the number of medical residencies in the state are some of the tools that state officials have discussed to help recruit, train and retain medical professionals in Idaho.

JFAC members had hoped that Tuesday’s meeting would be their final meeting of the year, but they failed to complete their agenda Tuesday and will need to meet again at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Legislators missed their nonbinding target to adjourn the legislative session for the year on March 27, and are now scrambling toward – potentially – wrapping up the annual legislative session this week.

Wednesday will be the 80th day of the 2026 legislative session, which convened Jan. 12. Most Idaho legislative sessions run for roughly 75 to 90 days, although there is no requirement to adjourn for the year by a certain date.