Idaho’s state Board of Education has announced that its new executive director will be Matt Freeman, now the board’s deputy director and chief fiscal officer. The home-grown pick, chosen after a national search, previously spent nine years with the Legislative Services Office, where he was...
Idaho officials have filed court documents to intervene in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service brought by a northern Idaho couple and an environmental group, the AP reports; the state Board of Land Commissioners and Idaho Department of Lands made the filing in…
State schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra is putting together a team to review whether to tie Idaho’s current teacher evaluation system to teacher pay, Idaho EdNews reports, after the news outlet analyzed Idaho teacher evaluations statewide and found more than a quarter of the state school…
Despite five years of warnings, Idaho has continued to violate the U.S. and Idaho constitutions by failing to provide poor people charged with crimes with lawyers who can adequately defend them, a class-action lawsuit filed today charges. Instead, the state has responded by creating a...
1st District Congressman Raul Labrador raised doubts Tuesday about the support for a wilderness bill 2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson has pushed for 15 years, reports Rocky Barker of the Idaho Statesman. The bill would designate 275,665 acres in the Boulder and White Cloud mountains…
The Idaho Land Board has taken a step toward selling off endowment commercial real estate holdings within the state, while also looking to buy shares in professionally managed commercial property investments nationwide. The board voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a process for hiring an adviser...
Based on how state endowment fund investment returns are coming in, Idaho can likely expect distributions to the beneficiaries – the largest of which is public schools – to jump by about 9 percent from the fiscal year 2016 distribution to the 2017 level, investment…
All but four states have either met or are working toward meeting federal guidelines intended to prevent prison rape, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but Idaho’s one of the four that hasn’t. AP reporter Rebecca Boone writes that Idaho, Arkansas, Alaska and Utah…
State Sen. John Tippets, R-Montpelier, has been named the next director of the state Department of Environmental Quality by Gov. Butch Otter; Tippets will start July 6. He succeeds former Director Curt Fransen, who retired in May. Tippets, 63, who is now in his third...
Longtime Sen. Dean Cameron’s departure from the Idaho Senate to become the new state insurance chief has prompted an array of Magic Valley Republicans to express interest in being appointed to Cameron’s seat, reports Nathan Brown of the Twin Falls Times-News. Among those expressing interest:…
Despite state lawmakers’ move this year to increase state funding for schools by 7.4 percent, school funding remains 6 percent below the 2006-07 level, the Idaho Statesman reports, when measured on a per-student basis, and 18.6 percent lower than 06-07 when inflation is taken into...
From proposed Sunshine Law changes from the Idaho GOP to falling marble in the Capitol and Idaho politics, here’s a link to my full Sunday column at spokesman.com. The Idaho GOP central committee’s newly passed resolution calling for loosening campaign finance reporting requirements under the…
After 18 months of negotiations, Idaho has agreed to settle the long-running Jeff D. lawsuit over children’s mental health services in the state, committing to remake its system of providing care to youngsters with mental illness. It’s a case that’s continued through 35 years,...
I’ll have a full story in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review on today’s announcement of a landmark settlement in the long-running Jeff D. lawsuit over children’s mental health services in Idaho. In the meantime, check out this 2002 story by S-R reporter Jonathan Martin that profiled Jeff D.,…
The Idaho Democratic Party has postponed the election of a new state party chair until Aug. 1; Vice Chair Jeanne Buell will remain acting chair in the meantime. Former Chairman Larry Kenck stepped down due to health reasons; thus far, three hopefuls, Dean Ferguson, Randy…
Thirteen states, including Idaho, will share in $10 million worth of land restoration projects designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced today. Eight of the states are in the West; others include Georgia, Florida, Virginia and…
With various parties clamoring to intervene in the instant racing case, the Idaho Supreme Court issued an order today allowing Gov. Butch Otter, Coeur d’Alene Racing and Treasure Valley Racing to file “friend of the court” briefs in the case, but not to participate in…
Settlement of the long-running Jeff D. lawsuit over children’s mental health care in Idaho was announced today by the state Department of Health & Welfare. The settlement agreement calls for an eight-year series of actions designed to provide a statewide, community-based system to serve the...
After a piece of marble wainscoting trim in the state Capitol’s lower-level east wing came crashing down at the touch of a 5-year-old girl this week, Jan Frew, deputy administrator of the state’s Division of Public Works and the executive project manager for the Capitol…
Idaho's online insurance exchange needs to collect $9 million in annual revenue by the summer of 2017, up from the current $6 million, or risk dipping into its limited reserves in order to stay in business, the AP reports. State health insurance exchanges stopped getting…
Controversy is swirling around one of the Inland Northwest’s most prominent civil rights activists, with family members of Rachel Dolezal saying the local leader of the NAACP has been falsely portraying herself as black for years. Rachel Dolezal formerly was education director of the Human…
When Idaho EdNews examined teacher evaluation data from every school district in the state, it found that a quarter of Idaho’s school districts rated all of their teachers as “proficient,” giving no other ratings out. They included some of the state’s largest and smallest districts;…
Getting Idaho’s agriculture, technology and research sectors together to learn from each other and explore ways to accelerate agricultural technology in the state is the goal of the “Governor’s Agritech Summit,” which will be held Tuesday in Boise at the Boise Center. It’ll be hosted…
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter wants to add his arguments to the instant racing case that’s pending before the Idaho Supreme Court, in which the Coeur d’Alene Tribe is suing to force Secretary of State Lawerence Denney to certify SB 1011 as law, repealing authorization for...
Prosecutors want to hide two witnesses behind a screen in an upcoming terrorism trial in Boise and allow them to testify using made-up names, the Idaho Statesman reports today. The two FBI informants or their families could face retaliation from backers of the Islamic Movement…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
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