Idaho attorney general asks Legislature to restore budget cuts to his office

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador asked the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee to restore nearly $1 million in funding cuts that he says would lead to massive furloughs or layoffs that would devastate the office.

On Tuesday morning, Labrador told the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, that new across-the-board budget cuts approved earlier this month would reduce funding for the AG’s office by $1.6 million next year in fiscal year 2027 and ongoing thereafter. 

JFAC also cut the AG’s office budget by $1.2 million for the current fiscal year 2026 and cut the Internet Crimes Against Children program by $91,500 in Senate Bill 1331, the fiscal year 2026 budget rescission act. 

“We can absorb minor reductions, but anything significant means salary reductions through unpaid furlough days for every employee in this office or reducing staff that is increasingly being asked every day to do more and more by this Legislature,” Labrador told JFAC members at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. 

How would state budget cuts affect the attorney general office’s employees?

Labrador told JFAC members that 89% of his office’s costs are personnel costs, so he has no choice but to cut salaries through furloughs or layoffs.

To absorb this year’s cuts, Labrador said all employees will take 11 unpaid furlough days between now and June 30.

For fiscal year 2027, which begins July 1, Labrador said he would have to implement 14 furlough days – nearly three full weeks of unpaid time – for 227 employees. That’s roughly a 5% pay cut, Labrador said. State employees have already been told not to expect pay raises next year. 

“This would be devastating to our employees, and my office will lose significant staff,” Labrador said, asking JFAC to return $980,000 of the cuts. 

As an alternative to furlough days, Labrador said he would have to eliminate 12 staff positions completely. 

Labrador said the AG’s office brings more money into the state than it spends – partially through consumer protection cases and lawsuits – and he said his attorneys are all already paid less than private practice attorneys that they square off against in court. 

After JFAC’s meeting Wednesday, Labrador told the Idaho Capital Sun that he originally thought the AG’s Office was exempted from budget cuts because Gov. Brad Little’s office did not ask the AG’s Office to comply with the original 3% budget cuts Little implemented last summer. That’s because Labrador is an elected constitutional officer, and the AG’s office is not part of the governor’s office, state officials said Wednesday. 

However, when JFAC passed budget cuts for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027, JFAC applied the original 3% budget cut to the AG’s Office – plus the additional 1% and 2% budget cuts for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027. 

“When the governor did not recommend a 3% holdback for our office, I did not expect that our office would have that 3% holdback,” Labrador told JFAC members Wednesday. 

State agencies directors say budget cuts would do serious damage to vital programs

Labrador was just the latest in a long series of state agency directors and officials who have publicly stated over the past three weeks that state budget cuts would do significant harm to core programs and essential services that the state provides.

A recent series published this month by the Idaho Capital Sun found the new budget cuts would lead to hiring fewer state wildland firefighters and increase wildfire risk, cause the state to lose public defenders who provide legal services guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, endanger the state’s crisis response system, jeopardize mental health courts that have reduced crime and helped thousands of Idahoans turn their lives around, reduce water quality monitoring for things like harmful algal blooms that can make people sick and kill pets and livestock and more. 

“We are passing something today that has the potential to break the state, and you know that,” Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, warned moments before JFAC passed maintenance budgets with permanent 5% cuts on Feb. 13.  

JFAC members did not take any action Wednesday on Labrador’s request to restore cut funding. Any potential funding restorations could come in the form of budget enhancements that would need to be voted on by JFAC.