Local legislators said they were encouraged by the tone of Gov. Brad Little’s address to the state Monday.

“I thought the speech was interesting,” Sen. Mary Souza (R-Coeur d’Alene) told the Coeur d’Alene Press. “He had a lot of good information I thought the public needed to hear about the care we’ve given to being responsible with the federal money that came in, with our own money, our own budgeting.”

Little used part of Monday’s address to take a victory lap on the surplus the state accrued during the pandemic, the result of belt-tightening in the months before COVID-19 hit Idaho.

“In our state we managed well and ended up with actually a surplus of money, as opposed to a number of other states that are in deep debt after this whole thing," Souza said.

Rep. Jim Addis (R-Coeur d’Alene) said he was encouraged by themes Little emphasized repeatedly throughout the speech, most notably tax relief.

“I thought that was a very positive speech,” Addis said. “I’ve always been for tax relief. Tax relief and transportation were two big issues for me, and both were points the governor chose to highight. It’s good news for a lot of our constituents to have a governor on our side, when it comes to tax relief.”

Little announced Monday he would propose a combined $455 million in tax relief, $295 million in coming from one-time tax relief and $160 million in permanent tax cuts.

Rep. Paul Amador (R-Coeur d’Alene) said he’s seen early copies of the budget proposals, and he remains optimistic it will continue a fiscally conservative trend.

“We’ve got a pretty strong budgetary outlook,” Amador said. “They’re going to make some key investments in infrastructure and education … But it’s also a relatively austere budget, pretty well holding the line. We’re going to increase our rainy day accounts to the maximum level allowed in law, and that will potentially help us out for the future.”