A Very Special Bill

Guest Editorial by Todd Thomas

The 2025 Idaho Legislature has now adjourned. It was a mixed bag of results unlike any other session in my recent memory. Depending on your party membership or point of view, it was either wildly successful or a disaster. As always, there were bills I liked and disliked that passed and bills I liked that failed.

Sen. Mark Harris’s (District 35 Soda Springs) bill for EMS administrational changes passed. This will hopefully open up the door for more funding for volunteer EMS agencies around the state. As a former EMT for Franklin County, I applaud this action.

I was not pleased to see the Medicaid cost containment measure gain Governor Little’s signature. As a healthcare provider myself, I fear the switch to a managed care model will not fulfill the intended savings expectations. But I concede that the final bill was an improvement from its original mess. I was also less than ecstatic when HB 93 for school choice tax credits wrestled its way to the chief executive’s desk and was signed into law. I am just not ready to give up on the public school system. Leaving those issues behind for now, I would like to opine about a bill I favored. It sadly failed the Senate, after narrowly passing the House.

I speak of HB 291 that addressed the idea of a high-needs student fund for educational expenses. It barely passed the House in a 36 -34 tally. The Senate pulled a fast one by the switching of a “yes” vote to a “no” at the last minute in order to fail it 17-18. I would like to see a statement from Sen. Ben Adams to explain his last second vote switch. Rep. Ben Fuhriman (District 30 Shelley) was the House sponsor and Sen. Camille Blaylock (District 11 Caldwell) carried it to the Senate floor.

In brief, this bill would have allocated $3 million to a fund designed for school districts around the state. $3 million is coincidentally the approximate amount it cost the state of Idaho to hold the 2025 legislative session. This amount is a 3% drop in the bucket to fill the $80 million gap in special education funding. This gap is defined as the difference between what the federal and state governments provide for special education students and what districts actually spend. Whether the feds send us money or not, the districts have to come up with the resources to fulfill their federal and state requirements for these kids. $3 million is also only 0.1% of the overall public school’s budget. The proposed line item would not be or become an automatic uncapped distribution. It is money, allocated within the public school budget, to alleviate pressure on an underfunded educational system. School districts who incurred unexpected costs for their special or higher needs students would make an application to the fund for reimbursement. They would first have to exhaust their existing budget amounts before applying for this additional funding. The reimbursement would only come after private insurance and Medicaid funds were applied.

The naysayers of this bill touted the need for financial constraint and wasteful spending as their criteria for opposition. I am all in for judicious and parsimonious use of taxpayer dollars. Budget stewardship and optimization is a morbidly obese burden on any elected official. I can support many other budget cuts, but this bill was not a cut. It was simply a re-allocation. It shouldn’t be forced into the category of “wasteful spending”.

Money spent on a child’s education, any child of any capacity, is never “wasteful”. To briefly address Sen. Tammy Nichols’s reported debate comments (Idaho Press, Laura Guido, March 25, 2025), this funding certainly can have a “return on investment”. The government already has our money, either willingly or unwillingly. Why not spend it on something good and worthy? Let’s give these families some hope. “Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies”.

This type of funding can assist in a quality of life and pursuit of some level of happiness for both the student and the parents/family. If the government is supposed to do anything for us, it is to contribute to those United States Constitutional and Idaho Constitutional elements of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The type of funding that HB 291 would have provided could have contributed to those values.

I have both talked and listened about this bill topic with parents of high needs students, school district administrators, special education specialists and regular community members. Every one of us, me included, would have voted “yes” on this bill without hesitation. There are many of us who will fight like a warrior, with weapon out and belly in for the proper education of our children.

In my profession, I have had the blessing to work with multiple students from this demographic. Yes, they can be challenging to therapists and teachers alike. But a great challenge brings a great reward. Their brand of life pays a large second paycheck to those who serve them. Some of my best retirement memories will be of the times with my special needs clients in the course of what was considered physical therapy but was playful fun to them. I am thinking fondly of a couple of my special kids even as I write this. I wish I could adequately describe and convey the experience it has been for me.

If HB 291 had passed both chambers, I am certain Gov. Little would have signed it. He disappointed me a couple of times this session, I pray he would not have done so a third time. I wish for this bill to be resurrected again next session.

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” - Mahatma Gandhi

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About the Author

Todd Thomas was born and raised in Preston, Idaho and currently serves as the chairman of the Franklin County Republican Central Committee in addition to being a member of the Preston City council. He writes weekly nostalgic light hearted columns for several southeast Idaho and northern Utah newspapers but occasionally dips his toes into the political pool.

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