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Archive for June 2005
En route from Pocatello to Boise, I passed the Garden of Eden – it’s a truck stop in Eden, Idaho, who knew? And then I drove right by the road to Bliss. As the landscape gradually became drier, browner and more dominated by sagebrush near Mountain Home, I recalled a story a relative tells about a young bride whose military husband was going to bring her to Idaho – specifically to Mountain Home, site of the big Air Force base. Knowing nothing about Idaho, the young woman looked for pictures, and found some – showing Coeur d’Alene. Seeing the lake shimmering blue amid the forested mountains, she grew increasingly excited about moving to her new home state. Then, when she got her first view of the stark landscape surrounding Mountain Home, the bride cried.Little did she know that she was within 100 miles of both the Garden of Eden and the road to Bliss.
Members of the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee were hearing an update on the state budget today, including the good news that Idaho’s structural deficit is shrinking and now looks likely to be virtually gone by the end of fiscal year 2007, if current trends hold. Legislative Budget Director Jeff Youtz ran down the ways Idaho had to scratch and patch to balance its budget in recent years, including a temporary sales tax increase, cutting budgets, deferring maintenance and other needs, and draining virtually every state account that had money left in it. “We raided the water pollution control fund, and every fund that wasn’t adequately hidden from us,” Youtz told the lawmakers, to which JFAC Co-Chair Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, responded, “What one would that be?”That drew laughter, but things really were that desperate, after state revenues dropped 15 percent in a single year, with 10 percent of that drop from an economic downturn and 5 percent from income tax cuts that lawmakers approved in 2001 just before the downturn. Youtz noted that the state’s budget stabilization fund was among those drained at the time. “It was not quite zero – we had about $34 in it,” he said. Now, with stronger state revenues, the budget stabilization fund is refilling.
Things couldn’t be looking more lush in Boise – the hills are uncharacteristically green, flowers are blooming all over the place, nearby Lucky Peak Reservoir is full and sparkling, and frequent spring rains keep causing mini-flash floods in the streets and leaving standing water here and there. But today, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne made if official: It’s a drought. The governor declared a drought emergency in Ada County.That’s because irrigation water here comes from the Boise River, and forecasts are that the river’s flows will only hit 60 percent of average this year. Lucky Peak won’t stay full, either. County commissioners requested the drought declaration so temporary water rights can be sought and so forth; Ada is the 19th Idaho county to get a drought emergency declaration so far this year.
Specialist Carrie L. French, 19, of Caldwell, Idaho, died yesterday in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device hit her convoy vehicle. French was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 145th Support Battalion, based in Boise. The young soldier is survived by her parents, Paula Hylinsky and Rick French, who issued this statement: “Carrie was a fun-loving young woman with a warm heart and a desire to serve. She was loved by everyone who knew her, and she will be dearly missed.”
There’s a lot of “if I won the lottery” talk in Boise these days, what with an unidentified, 30-something Boisean holding a $220.3 million Powerball jackpot ticket. The unnamed winner has to decide whether to take his winnings as a single, $125 million payout (before taxes) all at once, or a 30-year annuity that would total the full $220.3 million, made in equal payments of $7.3 million a year for 30 years.
The winner’s not the only one anticipating this decision. If he chooses the lump-sum, Idaho will nab $9.75 million in state income taxes from it, all at once. That’s a substantial boost to the state budget. The state would actually get more overall from the annuity option - but it would come in at just over half a million a year for 30 years, making far less of a bump in state finances.
“It would just be receipts that come into the state general fund,” said Brad Foltman, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s budget director. “There are no hooks or strings or anything else that would be included with that. . It would not be designated for any particular thing.”
If the money were split up like the rest of the state budget, public schools would get the largest share of the lump-sum payout, about $4.5 million. But lawmakers and the governor decide how to spend the state budget, and there’s no telling which way they’d go.
Foltman noted that right now, state revenues are running well ahead of projections and the state’s budget is running a surplus. “It seems like we’re getting all of the breaks that we wish we could’ve got one of just a few years ago,” he said. “Ten million bucks would’ve helped dramatically in offsetting some holdback issues we had - but we didn’t have it then.” Now, he said, “When the luck faucet gets turned on, we’re doing good.”
Steve Woodall, deputy director of the Idaho Lottery, said the lottery has heard from the winner’s attorney, and the winner is still mulling his options. He’s Idaho’s biggest winner ever, far eclipsing the $18.7 million won by Boisean Eric Kyle this February, and even the $87 million haul Boise’s Pam Hiatt collected in 1995. Hiatt, who was in her 20s when she won, called the lottery last night to offer to chat with the latest winner.
“She’s a real nice young woman,” Woodall said. “She just kind of called to say if he wants to talk to anybody, it’s kind of a unique experience, she real graciously said that he can call her and they can talk about what it’s like to be young multimillionaires.”
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