Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter: Yellow flags (Idaho DOGE task force)

Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter:
Yellow flags (Idaho DOGE task force)

This is my third “Yellow Flag” newsletter. The first one discussed across-the-board cuts to the state’s budget. The second one took a closer look at conditional approval of a dubious charter school. This newsletter addresses concerns pertaining to the so-called DOGE task force created without legislative approval.

To be clear: Looking for ways to make state government more efficient is a good thing – as long as a balanced perspective is maintained by looking at costs and the benefits associated with the cost.

It takes little effort to wield a budget axe in blind adherence to a political slogan that demands the legislature “keep government small.” It takes intellect, expertise, experience, and critical thinking to fully understand the fiscal and social impacts associated with important state services that people depend on or take for granted.

But there is something more disturbing behind this DOGE task force that majority party leaders aren’t talking about . . .

A rogue task force?

The legitimacy of this DOGE task force is questionable. Legitimate interim committees are created via legislation passed by both the House and Senate. The House passed H364, which would create a DOGE interim committee. However, it died in the Senate when no action was taken on the bill. Ignoring this, majority party leadership created one anyway by assembling an eight-member DOGE “task force” with one token Democrat so they could say it was “bi-partisan” (House Democrats were excluded from being on the task force).

I firmly believe that state government should be run as efficiently as possible. Taxpayers should expect both the Legislature and the Governor to be smart and efficient with taxpayer dollars every day. It is equally important to make sure that fiscal policies balance cost management with smart investments in the state’s future – especially in a fast-growing state with an aging infrastructure.

Successful businesses conduct cost-benefit analysis – assessing the benefit received in return for spending money that invests in their future. This requires thinking beyond the current fiscal year, where an expenditure today may return important, desired benefits over time.

The DOGE task force appears focused mostly on cost-only analysis without much consideration for the benefits provided – or what will be lost when budgets are cut. Some of the warning signs include:

There is no priority given to setting standards, criteria, and processes for quantifying the benefits received that would justify the cost.
Eliminating Medicaid Expansion appears to be a high priority.
One member declared: “We’re focusing on how many employees we’re going to get rid of” (versus how many are needed).
Another member wants the task force to “reduce occupational licensing regulations” - which protects consumers from incompetent and unqualified service providers.
The task force welcomed the Idaho Freedom Foundation's testimony (the IFF is recommending that $2.1 billion be eliminated from the funding of state services and functions).
The task force is also asking the public to report anything anyone thinks is wasteful via a "tip line." This encourages decision making by grievance.

Since the DOGE task force is not a real interim committee, it has no funding to pay a staff to conduct the exhaustive analysis it would take to make fully informed decisions. This creates an opportunity to exploit the task force to generate campaign talking points by targeting things to cut without fully knowing what the consequences will be.

An ulterior motive?

There is something very disturbing that lurks behind this task force. It’s buried in the Statement of Purpose (SOP) of the failed bill that tried to create a legitimate DOGE interim committee:

“Evaluate state agency rulemaking to strengthen oversight and reduce regulatory burdens, with a long-term goal of shifting nearly all regulations to statute by 2033.”

This astonishing statement usurps the role of the governor and the executive branch. The legislature establishes policy via statue and the executive branch writes the rules necessary to implement those policies across the state agencies and departments that actually do the work necessary for state government to function every day.

These rules are created via an extensive, year-round “negotiated rule-making process” where agency employees meet with public and private sector stakeholders to help ensure the rules they write are reasonable and workable. The legislature meets for only three months and has no staff or expertise to do this work. In fact, the legislature already has the power to review, accept or reject state agency rules.

But apparently, that’s not enough. The SOP in the failed bill implies an ulterior motive behind the DOGE effort: legislative control over nearly all state agencies. This undermines the principle of co-equal branches of government and the balance of power – principles that are the very foundation of our system of government.

This planned takeover of the executive branch has already started. Here are some of the bills from the 2025 session that have already moved executive agency rules into legislative-controlled statute:

H90: Public assistance programs
H200: Pharmacies
H290: Immunizations
H312: Daycare licensing
H336: Child support
H397: Requirements for high school civics tests
S1014: Tests and blood specimen collection for infants and newborns
S1051: Child support services
S1024: Substance Use Disorders (SUD)
S1170: Use of cyanide in mining

And the governor signed every single one of them into law.

It is the governor’s responsibility to ensure his state agencies are efficient and effective with taxpayer dollars – not the legislature’s. His departments have the time, resources and expertise to do this work – not the legislature. His resources are better positioned to conduct evaluations through an experienced, professional lens. Part-time politicians are often more concerned about how the things they say or do will be used for or against them in the next election - which will the May primary, less than two months after the end of the 2026 session.

What would be helpful is a real efficiency effort. The governor could take the lead in creating a legitimate, funded interim committee with a depth and breadth of membership that includes legislators, executive branch directors, budget managers, and professionals with experience taking on a task of this magnitude.

Instead, the DOGE task force will likely propose a slew of bills that drastically cut budgets, eliminate state agencies, and move even more rules into statute. Will the governor veto bills that take away his responsibilities and gives it to the legislature? Past performance is not encouraging.

But there is one encouraging note that keeps this yellow flag from becoming a red flag – at least for now. One of the task force members recently said the task force needs to closely review each proposed action:

“Sometimes, moving some of these — because I’ve looked at them and I get down to it and I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I’m actually going to save any money.’ Sometimes with some of them I’ve got through and I’m like, ‘Honestly, I think this might end up being a cost increase, not a cost decrease.’”

Hopefully the rest of the task force will take this insight seriously and prevent damage from unintended consequences due to decisions that are not fully analyzed and thought out.