Want to save the state nearly $100 million and help fix the budget hole created by years of overspending? Stop digging the money pit of the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) headquarters on State Street.
A couple of weeks ago, the governor’s office of the Division of Financial Management revised its tax collections forecast and reported that Idaho will end up nearly $80 million in the hole at the end of this budget year if nothing is done to control spending. We, at the Idaho Freedom Foundation, have already proposed over $2.1 billion of savings achievable through our recommendations to the legislative DOGE Committee (Department of Government Efficiency).
The DOGE Committee results, if any, will take some time to achieve. So, given the governor’s urgency, here is a simple and fast fix for the budget: stop digging and dumping money in the ITD pit.
You may recall the woeful, flood-damaged building was actually up for sale and a deal had been all but struck in the spring of 2024. But then, Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder and House Speaker Moyle got into a bravado contest over who should make such decisions and how.
Speaker Moyle pushed House Bill 770 to thwart the $52 million sale, keep the building, and renovate it after its flooding incident for an additional $32.5 million. The bill also added a huge number of state employees (FTEs), creating even more long-term costs. Remember, too, the “compromise” bill added another $347 million to ITD beyond the governor’s request to sweeten the deal, so the squabble turned out even more costly.
Despite the bill being rated a -5 on the Idaho Spending Index, it narrowly passed the House and then the Senate by a single vote. Moyle won, Winder lost (and then lost again), and most importantly, Idaho lost.
Thus, the sale was squashed, and instead of raking in nearly $52 million from the sale, spending some of it on the relocation of ITD to the state’s Chinden Campus, and avoiding then-estimated $32 million of renovation costs, we end up where we are in September 2025.
The building turns out to be a huge money pit. The renovation costs are now estimated to be between $64 million and $69.4 million out of pocket. The state has already spent $32.5 million and has just appropriated another $9.6 million in 2025 for the next year (Senate Bill 1218), with another $22 million or more still needed in the future.
So, Governor, you want a cool $80 million to solve this year’s budget shortfall? Simple, cut your losses at the ITD headquarters money pit. With the building’s “as is” value at $52 million in 2024, and $32 million already sunk in renovations, we ought to be able to sell it off now for at least $80 million and forgo the added $9.6 million renovations this year, as well as the $22 million in renovations next year. That is a huge cost reversal.
The first rule of holes is, when you’re in one, stop digging. Idaho is in an $80 million hole. The ITD headquarters is coming in at least $30 million over budget and bears the opportunity cost of not selling it when we could have. Take a few million, even $20 million, to relocate ITD to the empty space existing at the Chinden Campus and save the state $90 million to $100 million overall.
Sometimes it takes a crisis, even a budget crisis, for elected officials to finally do the right thing. Well, now we have a crisis. It’s not rocket science; it’s simply sound financial management to fix it, and we should expect this modicum of common sense from our “fiscally conservative” governor and Legislature.
Stop digging, and fill the hole, please.
