Department of Water Resources requests 5 new staff, $30 million ongoing and outlines $293 million in committed projects

At a legislative budget hearing, the Idaho Department of Water Resources told members of the Joint Appropriations Committee that it needs five new positions to form a Water Administration Bureau, a public information officer and $30 million in ongoing general-fund support to advance statewide projects and meet new administration duties.

The department, represented by Director Matthew Weaver and Water Resource Board Chairman Jeff Raybould and introduced by Janet Jessup, a legislative budget analyst, told legislators the agency is carrying large appropriations from recent infusions of federal and state funds — including American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) state fiscal recovery monies — and that most of those funds are already committed to named projects.

The additional staff would be grouped with existing personnel in a new Water Administration Bureau that the department says is needed to support creation and ongoing operations of water districts, perform real-time measurement and administration demanded by a recent settlement on the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA), and handle growing workloads tied to transfers, adjudication and water-right changes. Weaver told the committee the five requested positions include a bureau chief and technical records support, while the public information position would be repurposed from an existing vacancy.

Jessup, the legislative analyst, said the department’s fiscal materials and interactive GIS project map are on the committee SharePoint. She said the department’s base staffing was about 170 full-time positions and that in 2024 the agency expended roughly 87–90% of its personnel appropriation and operated near a typical vacancy rate. She also flagged that the agency’s recent increase in expenditures is tied to ARPA funds: roughly $50 million of ARPA funding was one-time and another $50 million was treated as ongoing when added to the base in fiscal 2023.

Why it matters: committee…