In brief: Woman’s old ticket worth $600,000
It took her more than two months to realize it, but on Dec. 15, 2007, Alice Massey won big.
The Rathdrum woman cashed in a ticket worth $600,000 at the Idaho Lottery headquarters in Boise Wednesday. She discovered the months-old ticket Tuesday night after taking a pile of old tickets to a store to check for winners.
“I read all the news stories and heard all about the ticket and always wondered who that dumb person was who hadn’t checked their ticket to find the winner. It turned out to be me,” Massey said in a news release from the Idaho Lottery. “… The clerk, the manager and my son all had to hold me up.”
Massey will take home $403,200 after taxes. The store that sold the winning ticket, Super 1 Foods in Rathdrum, will get $50,000.
Massey plans to continue working as a floor supervisor at Liberty Tool, pay off debt and invest the rest, according to the news release.
Boise
House passes school funding bill
Idaho would make up part of the loss to timber-dependent school districts if Congress fails to reauthorize so-called Craig-Wyden funds for the next four years, under legislation that passed the Idaho House on Thursday.
The federal law has sent payments to rural areas since 2000 to make up for the loss of federal timber receipts, previously a key source of funding for rural schools and roads.
Rep. Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, spoke in favor of the bill, saying his school district could lose $1.4 million, which he called “a heck of a hit.”
“I’d love to see a bill that would take the national forest back to the state of Idaho and let the state of Idaho manage it; we could do a much better job,” Harwood said. “They’re not paying for their bad stewardship.”
The bill, HB 532, passed on a 55-12 vote and now moves to the Senate. It was opposed by North Idaho Reps. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, and Phil Hart, R-Athol.
Stream protection funding restored
Idaho lawmakers restored funding Thursday for the state’s stream channel protection program, which faced losing four of its five staffers next year under proposed budget cuts.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee added $1 million in one-time funds to the Department of Water Resources budget for next year to preserve the program, which issues permits for changes in waterways such as stabilizing stream banks. Lawmakers will have to scrape up the money again next year to continue the program.
Gov. Butch Otter called for cutting the department’s budget because he thought requirements for the Snake River Basin Adjudication were winding down, but the department said it still has substantial obligations in that area.
From staff and wire reports