On tonight’s “Idaho Reports” program on Idaho Public Television, I join Jim Weatherby, Clark Corbin, and co-hosts Melissa Davlin and Aaron Kunz for a discussion of education funding issues that came up in the Legislature this week, from WiFi to broadband to teacher pay. Also,…
Here’s a link to my full story at spokesman.com on how lawmakers decided today that Idaho school districts – like Coeur d’Alene – that opted not to join a controversial statewide contract for high school WiFi services should qualify for state funding for their own…
Idaho’s state Board of Correction could contract out prison inmates as farm laborers, under legislation making its way through this year. Reporter Sean Ellis of the Capital Press has a report here on the bill, SB 1374 from Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston.…
The general fund revenue report is out for February, and the numbers are positive – state tax revenues came in 28.6 percent ahead of forecasts. February’s $27.5 million surplus is enough to offset the previous month’s $25.9 million shortfall; year to date, general fund receipts…
The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into private prison company Corrections Corporation of America and how it ran an Idaho state prison plagued by inmate violence, the AP reports. The Idaho State Police was asked to investigate the company last year but didn't, until…
The homeowner’s exemption from property tax would no longer be indexed and go up and down with the market, under legislation from the Idaho Realtors and the Idaho Farm Bureau that cleared the House Revenue & Taxation Committee today. HB 594 would instead set the…
A narrowly divided House voted 34-32 in favor of HB 556, legislation from Rep. Steven Harris, R-Boise, to require parent and student input in teacher evaluations – a bill that was opposed by all three major education stakeholder groups in Idaho, and a departure from…
With little debate, the Senate has voted 28-6 in favor of SJR 106, Sen. Steve Vick’s proposed constitutional amendment to empower the House speaker and the Senate president pro-tem to order the governor to call a special session of the Legislature for a veto override…
Four “Add the Words” protesters, their hands covering their mouths and some holding photocopied pictures of two gay Idaho teens who committed suicide, have been standing silently in the center of the first-floor rotunda of the Capitol today. Former state Sen. Nicole LeFavour said she…
Student leaders from Idaho colleges and universities delivered a six-inch-high stack of petitions and letters to Gov. Butch Otter this morning opposing SB 1254, the guns-on-campus bill that passed the House yesterday, and urging Otter to veto the bill. Bryan Vlok, BSU student body president,…
With the Medicaid and Welfare Division budgets set, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has reached the end of its agency budget-setting schedule – a milestone. Typically, lawmakers can wrap up their legislative session as soon as two weeks after the end of agency budget-setting. JFAC’s work…
Legislative budget writers have set a budget for Medicaid that reflects only 0.4 percent growth next year in total funds, 3.1 percent in state general funds. That’s in part because the “woodwork effect” of more people signing up for Medicaid who already were eligible, but…
Sen. Dean Cameron’s “Option 1” intent language for the public school budget – which lets school districts opt out of a statewide high school WiFi contract that state schools Supt. Tom Luna signed with Education Networks of America and get alternative funding for their own…
Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, is arguing for Option 1 on high school WiFi network funding – which would let school districts opt out of the statewide contract with Education Networks of America if they want, and get state funding for their own networks.…
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is looking at two possible options on intent language for the public schools budget this morning with regard to state high school WiFi networks: One would allow school districts to “opt out” of the current long-term, statewide contract, and get a…
The Idaho Falls Post Register has a report today about how Gov. Butch Otter ended up appearing in what eventually turned out to be a soft-core porn movie, years after he agreed to provide horses to a California movie crew working on a “low-budget horse…
A federal judge says a whistleblower lawsuit against the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections can move forward in court on some of the claims it raises, charging that young prisoners at a Nampa juvenile detention facility were sexually abused by staffers, and agency leaders not…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
