Week Four of 2025 Legislative Session

Dear Readers,

We’re ending the fourth week of the 68th legislative session and have seen numerous pieces of legislation regarding vouchers/school choice, income/property tax, Medicaid expansion repeal and transportation funding. Below are just a few of the bills the Chamber’s policy committee is reviewing: 

• House Bill 25 - This bill responds to the governor's request for funding into the Transportation Expansion Congestion Mitigation (TECM) Program; it gradually increases funding for TECM over the course of 3 years. Locals will be guaranteed $45 million annually.
• House Bill 39 - The "Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit" legislation provides for a refundable tax credit up to $5k for eligible students
• House Bill 40 - This is Moyle's first of 3 tax reduction bills, starting with income tax. This legislation will reduce Idaho's flat income tax rate on individuals and corporations from 5.695% to 5.3%. It will also expand Idaho's income tax exemption for U.S. military pension income.

JFAC continues with the new process they adopted last year, establishing a maintenance budget as the baseline - this only includes costs that are required to maintain current government operations and programs. Once the baseline budget is established and agreed upon, they hear from agencies about their new spending budgets and additional costs, evaluating what aligns with state goals. As of January 17th, JFAC has set the maintenance budget for FY26, totaling $12.6 billion. Over the next couple of months, they will continue to vote on new spending requests, supplemental funding requests and CEC (changes in employee compensation). If you'd like to check out the budget requests, click here. There are also several news articles discussing the past week in JFAC if you're interested: 

• Idaho Capital Sun: Idaho Legislature delays action on proposed pay raises for state employees
• Idaho EdNews: Statehouse Roundup, 1.16.25: JFAC divided over employee raises, revenue projection
• Idaho Press: Friday Legislative Roundup: JFAC approves $12.6 billion, Senate rejects legislators pay raises

Federally, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the federal freezes as well as the executive orders that may impact businesses. The U.S. Chamber released a memo regarding President Trump’s executive orders. This brief summary focuses on issues that are most relevant to the business community including finance and banking, trade and foreign affairs, employment policies, border security and immigration, and energy and environmental policy. To read the memo, click here. 

Last January, I shared about the Corporate Transparency Act, requiring small businesses to file corporate transparency reports with beneficial ownership information (BOI). This act is currently on hold and there are no filing requirements as of this time. I will continue to keep you updated if anything changes. If you’d like to learn more about this, click here. 

Boise State’s School of Public Policy Recently released their Tenth Annual Statewide Survey. 1,000 Adult Idahoans were surveyed on topics including economy, taxes, elections, education, housing and healthcare. Workforce and affordable housing continue to be Idahoans top legislative budget priority. To learn more and review the survey, click here. 

We recently released a survey (not to be confused or compared to Boise State's School of Public Policy's survey) asking our members if access to housing and affordable childcare has impacted their ability to recruit and retain talent. Click here to take the survey. 

Stay tuned for more updates and as always if you have any questions or would like to put something on the Chamber’s radar, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
​
Stay well,
Tori Thomas 

---