Idaho House and Senate lawmakers this session had proposed dueling bills to try and create a legislative oversight committee for a major federal grant to improve rural health care.

After weeks of those bills moving through the legislative process, the state budget writers voted Tuesday to create an oversight task force through a budget bill instead.

The House of Representatives passed House Bill 916, which would’ve created a nine-member task force. That bill died in a Senate committee last week.

Senators on Monday approved an amended Senate Bill 1264, which would’ve created a nine-member task force with a requirement that the majority of legislators on it represent rural districts.

On Tuesday, the state budget writers on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, JFAC, approved a budget bill that provided the spending authority for the grant, and created a legislative committee to oversee the awarding of subgrants.

JFAC co-Chair Rep. Josh Tanner, an Eagle Republican, said during the meeting he was told by House leadership that SB 1264 won’t be heard in the House.

The committee approved by JFAC largely mirrored HB 916’s makeup; it would include four members each from the House and Senate and one nonvoting member chosen by the governor. It did not include requirements for rural representation.

Idaho Falls Republican Sen. Kevin Cook, who sits on JFAC and sponsored SB 1264, emphasized that he had wanted a requirement for the committee to have rural legislators, which was defined in the bill as representing a district that lacked a city with 20,000 or more people.

“That’s what’s missing out of this,” Cook said. “We don’t have to have rural people represent them, I think that is just really, really wrong.”

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, a Boise Democrat, said she wanted to be cautious about the Legislature becoming “overly involved” in the administration of the grants.

“We’re not project managers,” Wintrow said.

Wintrow and Cook voted in favor of the budget bill.

What did the budget writers approve on Tuesday?

The federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act approved by Congress in July included $50 billion for rural health care grants nationwide.

Idaho was awarded around $186 million in late December as part of the grant. The state is expected to receive around $930 million in total over five years.

JFAC members voted 14-4, with two people absent, to approve 12 new limited staff positions at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and $3.7 million of the federal funds approved for administration of the program for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Budget writers then voted to approve around $295 million to spend in fiscal year 2027, which would include the remainder of the grant’s first-year funding and the second year of the grant.

The budget bill creating the oversight committee and appropriating the funds will go to the House and Senate for votes.