Idaho’s state budget challenges got tougher today, as lawmakers on a special joint committee rejected the governor’s estimate of tax revenue for next year and instead picked a figure $101 million lower. If that stands, lawmakers would have to cut another $101 million more beyond…
Gov. Butch Otter is renewing his push to trim back the health benefits Idaho now provides to state retirees, the Associated Press reports. Click below for the full story from AP reporter John Miller.
The AP is reporting that Idaho is temporarily violating a court order on prison crowding at the Idaho State Correctional Institution, after a Jan. 2 inmate riot damaged a new temporary housing unit that had been set up in a warehouse. It was too late…
The joint committee charged with determining the revenue figure on which Idaho's state budget for next year will be set has opted for a figure $100 million below the governor's figure - which means lawmakers will either have to cut much deeper into next year's…
A theme sounded by those at the rally today against cuts in services for the disabled, and also by lawmakers and Gov. Butch Otter, is that the cuts the state is making in its budget affect real people, and that's what makes them so difficult.…
Hundreds of disabled people, family members and advocates marched to the Capitol Annex this afternoon and rallied outside to oppose cuts in state services to the disabled. "I'm just like everybody else - I want to have my own apartment, I want to work, I…
When Idaho law enforcement agencies put on a big push to target impaired drivers over the Thanksgiving holiday period, they actually came up with more other offenders. ITD reports that the Nov. 21-30 mobilization, funded by a federal grant, resulted in 314 DUI arrests over…
Some of the 'aye' votes sounded reluctant, but JFAC has voted unanimously to make the governor's 4 percent holdbacks in this year's state budget permanent. "We find ourselves in this situation," said Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert. "I guess we can only hope and…
The Legislature's budget committee is in the process of voting on a series of motions to make the governor's 4 percent holdbacks permanent. So far, they've made one alteration - the governor wanted to account for a 4 percent holdback in public schools, then make…
In perhaps the easiest savings lawmakers will make in this year's budget, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee just voted unanimously in favor of the governor's recommendation to put off paying for fire suppression costs until after the end of the fiscal year each year, when the…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
