Gov. Butch Otter is addressing reporters this morning at the Idaho AP Legislative Preview. “Financially speaking, the state is in great shape,” he said. “So my budget is going to reflect that.” He’ll still stick to his promise to try to grow state government at a slower rate than the economy grows, he said. “So you can expect us to make an effort to put money into savings, you can expect us to return money that we don’t need. Now, whether or not we’re going to do it this year is another question, and that’s subject to debate once the Legislature gets started. But I can tell you that my budget is going to reflect bringing education pretty close if not above the 2009, what the 2009 budget was.”

Otter said, “We will replace most of those reductions … that were necessary during the recession. Other than that there’s not going to be a lot of new ideas where we can spend money or increase the size of government.” There's a full report here at spokesman.com.