Idaho State presents FY2026 request focused on enrollment, capacity enhancements and student-success investments

Legislative staff and Idaho State University officials briefed the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Jan. 29 about ISU’s FY2026 budget request, enrollment trends and investments targeted at student success and health sciences.

Kevin Campbell of the Legislative Services Office opened with an overview of ISU’s finances, telling the committee ISU has an enrollment of “more than 12,000 students,” is supported by roughly 1,244 full-time equivalent positions, and has a base budget the presentation listed as $171,100,000. Campbell flagged a technical error in the tuition-and-fees fund slide and said he is “CILTAC tracking down the problem,” but that the underlying tuition revenue and expenditures appear correct and “ISU has not overdrawn its bank account.”

Why it matters: ISU’s budget priorities and how the university accounts for tuition and fee revenue affect campus operations, student services and the Legislature’s appropriation choices.

Key budget details disclosed in the presentation: - Major expenditure breakdown: about 74.8% of ISU’s expenditures go to personnel, 21.2% to operating expenditures and 3.9% to capital outlay. - Historic adjustments: a mix of FY2021 reductions (2% ongoing general-fund reduction and a one-time 5% rescission) and subsequent enrollment-workload adjustments and operational capacity enhancements (OCE) over recent fiscal years. - FY2026 request highlights (as presented): $907,300 in operational capacity enhancement, $233,700 in an endowment-fund adjustment, and $988,100 in the enrollment-workload adjustment.

President Rob Wagner emphasized the links between those budget items and ISU’s strategic priorities. Wagner said the university has seen a rising trend in actual expenditures tied to “planned strategic investment in strategic capacity to support increasing enrollment” and highlighted the institution’s health-sciences expansion. He noted ISU’s health sciences programs have grown “up over 700 students in the last 5 years” and announced a new doctor of nurse anesthetist program that opened with 25 seats and drew “over 200 applicants in the first year.”

Committee members pressed Wagner and staff on workforce retention and the challenge of competing with private-sector wages. Wagner said ISU has lost employees to the private sector and that Competitive Employee Compensation (CEC) and other CEC-type funding remain a focus for recruiting and retention. He told the committee he expects ISU to be “on track to have a balanced budget for FY '26, a year ahead of schedule,” and asked for patience as the university balances student affordability and employee compensation.

Campbell and ISU staff reminded the committee that reappropriated tuition and fees appear in estimated expenditures on agency slides because academic-year timing and the budget cycle differ; reappropriation is “not the same as unspent or uncommitted” funds, he said. Campbell offered to update slides if the technical error in tuition beginning balances requires correction.

Ending: ISU and LSO staff told committee members they will follow up with corrected tuition fund figures if needed and that ISU will provide additional details on the FY2026 request and on planned uses for operational capacity and compensation enhancements when requested by members.