When money is scarce, options are limited.
So give state superintendent Debbie Critchfield points for focus. She is heading into the 2026 legislative session with a one-line wish list: money for special education.
She wants a $50 million special education grant program — to fill some of the gap between local student needs and existing state and federal funding.
It will strain a state budget facing its biggest stress test since the COVID-19 pandemic. It puts pressure on Gov. Brad Little — who has spared K -12 from budget cuts, so far, but wants a no-frills “maintenance” budget for 2026-27. It will also test how serious lawmakers are about a hallmark tenet of public education: helping schools serve all students who show up at the door, regardless of disability or vulnerability.
This impacts 33,000 special education students, making up slightly more than one tenth of Idaho’s K-12 enrollment.
Critchfield’s timing couldn’t be much worse, but you can’t put that on her. She spent the 2025 session trying to convince fellow Republicans to put some additional state money into special education. Lawmakers were in spending mode — they piled $453 million onto a combo plate of tax cuts and tax credits, including $50 million for a private school tax credit. K-12 funding increased by $102.8 million, but this did nothing to address special education.
And these were the good old days of six short months ago — before big-dollar tax cuts and sluggish tax collections decided the Statehouse was as good as any to come home to roost.
The 2025 Legislature could have taken a first step to modernize an aging school funding formula, routing more money into support for special education students and other at-risk demographic groups. It didn’t.
Lawmakers also could have put $3 million — a small sum, by the standards of the 2025 session — towards helping schools who must provide full-time help to high-needs special education students. They didn’t do that either.
Since then, Idaho’s special education problem has only worsened.
A March report from the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations identified an $82.2 million shortfall — a gap between districts’ costs and state and federal funding. Accounting for both school districts and charter schools, Critchfield’s staff pegs the shortfall at more than $100 million.
One other thing has worsened: the state’s fiscal position.
Little in August imposed a 3% midyear spending cut, covering most of state government, with the exception of K-12. He has also asked state agency heads to turn in hold-the-line spending requests for next year.
A $50 million special education request isn’t a hold-the-line budget, but Critchfield isn’t just a state agency head. She is a statewide elected official, like Little, and like the governor, Critchfield is positioning for a presumptive re-election campaign.
So the political dynamics are a bit different.
Governors get the next say on budgets, reviewing requests like Critchfield’s and submitting their recommendations in January. They tend to keep quiet about their plans before the session begins. And Little is certainly following the playbook. A statement on Critchfield’s request doesn’t even mention special education.
“Gov. Little looks forward to working with Superintendent Debbie Critchfield and the Legislature to continue to improve Idaho’s public school system,” spokeswoman Joan Varsek’s statement said, in part. “Supporting public schools remains Gov. Little’s top priority.”
Before any special education bill can reach Little’s desk, Critchfield will have to get buy-in from the Legislature, which is no small challenge.
She’d have to get a policy bill, creating the grant program, through the House and Senate education committees. She might have a working majority in both committees; in 2025, each committee OK’d the $3 million high-needs student fund, and a majority of committee members approved the bill on the floor.
But that was for $3 million, not $50 million, and the state wasn’t in budget-cutting mode earlier this year. Even in the absence of a budget crunch, the $3 million bill slipped through the House by a single vote, then died on the Senate floor by a single vote — suggesting that, essentially, half of the Legislature doesn’t want to do anything to bridge the special ed funding gap.
Yes, Idaho is facing a serious budget crunch. Little’s midyear cuts will wipe out $86 million in spending and erase a projected $79.9 million deficit. But it’s unlikely the deficit will stay put at $79.9 million. Even if tax collections snap out of their midsummer lethargy, it would cost Idaho an additional $167 million, this year, to conform with the tax cuts in the feds’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Critchfield could have one card she can play. The 2025 Legislature also phased out the $30 million Empowering Parents education microgrant program. That gives the 2026 Legislature some unencumbered money at its disposal in January. Critchfield would like to see that money stay in public schools, namely special education. But there may be no shortage of other ideas for the money: expanding the $50 million private school tax credit, putting the money toward other tax cuts, bridging some of the costs from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Come next winter, the existence of a “free” $30 million could be the worst-kept secret in the Statehouse.
This is not the best time for the Legislature to take on the special education budget crisis, and address it close to home, yet it might be the most crucial time to do it. Eight months into the second Trump presidency, the future of federal education policy is murky. President Donald Trump has said he doesn’t plan to cut federal special education spending, but there are no guarantees as to what federal funding will look like in the future.
As it is, the feds and the state are extending a tattered financial lifeline to local schools that must take in all special education students. The funding falls short of the whole job, leaving local schools to use supplemental property tax levies or other sources to fill in the blanks.
Make no mistake, Critchfield’s $50 million request is a longterm commitment. Once a state increases funding for special-needs students, federal “maintenance of state financial support” locks in the funding, forbidding future cuts. But this same requirement applies to underfunded districts and charters that must increase special education funding.
Special education is one of the biggest unfunded mandates facing Idaho schools. Critchfield is starting an uncomfortable conversation at an inopportune moment — but it’s not a timing of her choosing.
Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.