Wasden to lawmakers at JFAC hearing: ‘There are reasons why I do what I do’
Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says his office “represents an excellent value for the state,” returning $1.53 to the state for every taxpayer dollar appropriated to it. “Fiscal year 2016 was a successful year for my office,” he told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning, with $34.7 million returned to the state for a $22.7 million investment. That, he said, is “$1.53 for every dollar you spent on my office.”
Wasden came up for his annual budget hearing before JFAC today. In addition to the payback from his office’s recoveries, he opened the hearing this morning with an overview of his responsibility as attorney general. “My responsibility is to provide accurate, objective legal advice,” he said. “This means that sometimes I have to deliver advice that some don’t want to hear, but they need to hear.” If an agency wants to act outside its legal authority – which happens, Wasden said – it’s his responsibility to tell them so, which he said also happens.
“Although my advice may sometimes be unpopular, delivery of that advice ensures that your enactments are both complied with and legally defensible,” Wasden told the lawmakers. “This does not mean that we will always agree.” But it does, he said, show that our government works.
Gov. Butch Otter is recommending just a 2 percent increase in state general funds for the Attorney General’s office next year, and 1.8 percent in total funds. Wasden had requested a 10.2 percent increase in general funds, 9.5 percent in total funds, but he told JFAC he’s withdrawn the biggest piece of that increase request – $2.1 million and 21 positions to provide legal representation for the Department of Health & Welfare in child protection cases. That would have included 14 new deputy attorneys general and seven paralegals. Otter didn’t recommend the funding.
Wasden’s fiscal chief Tara Orr told JFAC the office is “using our existing resources” to provide additional focus on that area, including redirecting two legal support staffers and drawing on salary savings to create two new deputy attorney general positions to work in child protection.
Otter did recommend funding Wasden’s request for $105,000 and one new position to support the DEQ’s new Idaho Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a program for which the state is taking over primacy from the EPA; and a similar amount to add a deputy attorney general at the state Tax Commission to work on collection issues relating to up to $9 million in past-due taxes owed by out-of-state taxpayers. The governor didn’t recommend funding Wasden’s request to add a crime analyst to support the Internet Crimes Against Children unit, the Special Investigations Unit and more.
Wasden said his Consumer Protection Unit recovered more than $1.9 million during fiscal year 2016; it has a state budget of $780,000. The unit also recovered nearly $3 million in restitution for Idaho consumers, which Wasden said equals $6.30 for each taxpayer dollar appropriated.
He noted his office’s work on defending the multimillion-dollar annual payments it receives from a nationwide tobacco settlement; its work on water issues, including conjunctive management and water rights adjudication; and its work to stop a federal rule known as the Waters of the United States or WOTUS rule, currently on hold in court, that Wasden said “would greatly expand federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, and it impacts nearly a century of Idaho water law.”
Wasden also noted that Idaho collected more than $6.6 million in Medicaid estate recovery in fiscal year 2016, a record high; and has collected more than $28 million as a result of settlements with the two major credit rating agencies, including a recent Moody’s settlement from which Idaho’s share, $7.5 million, was wired to the state on Tuesday.
“I understand you and the Legislature sometimes have concerns about the way that certain issues are litigated and certain services are provided by my office,” he told JFAC. “There are reasons why I do what I do. This is not the forum to answer all of those questions,” or address “the angst and the anger which is sometimes levied at me directly and at my office.”
“I want you to know that my door is open always to answer those questions, not only about my budget but about what we do and why we do it,” he told the lawmakers. He thanked JFAC Co-Chairs Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, for taking the time to meet with him. “I think overall we end up with a better understanding of our respective responsibilities,” he said. “So I encourage and invite those discussions.”
JFAC members had no questions for Wasden at his budget hearing. Keough told him, “Thank you so much for your time this morning and for the work that you do and the work of your staff.”
