For the past 5 years, Doug Ricks has been the Idaho state senator representing District 34, which covers Madison Co. Sen. Ricks also serves as the chair of the Local Government and Taxation Committee and a member of the Judiciary and Rules Committee. As he prepares for the upcoming Idaho legislative session, Sen. Ricks shared his thoughts with BYU-Idaho Radio regarding the topics the legislators will be discussing.
The balancing of the state budget is one of the hot issues this session.
“In all reality, every state is dealing with the same thing. Idaho's deficit is much smaller than most other states,” Ricks said. “Currently, the projection is that we’re about 40 million short through the end of our fiscal year. But we’ll make adjustments, we’ll balance.”
In addition to balancing the budget, Ricks is concerned about growing Medicaid spending across the state, which he says started when voters passed Medicaid Expansion.
“There's been concern that's been ballooning over the last few years and it's unsustainable on the growth pattern,” Ricks said. “It's growing faster than any other part of our budget. And so, we've got to get a handle on some of that.”
The Idaho legislative session begins Monday with Gov. Brad Little’s State of the State and Budget address. You can watch that on the Idaho Public Television website.