Expanded Head Start Survives Senate Attack

A group of senators on Thursday tried to reverse the previous day’s approval for expanding Head Start in Idaho, but the move failed on a 23-10 vote.

Sen. Grant Ipsen, R-Boise, argued that it would set a bad precedent to tap into leftover welfare funds to expand Head Start, a preschool program for disadvantaged children. He said if the federal funds disappear in the future, the state might have to pick up the slack.

“We’re looking at some funds now that could very well dry up,” Ipsen told the Senate.

But the entire Head Start program is federally funded. Idaho has never added any state funds, though the program serves only one in five eligible children because funds are short.

Members of the Legislature’s budget committee and of Senate leadership argued against Ipsen’s move, in part because it was an attack on the committee’s authority to develop budgets. Once set by the budget committee, budgets are rarely changed in the full House or Senate.

Sen. Clyde Boatright, R-Rathdrum, a first-year member of the budget committee, persuaded the committee earlier to include the funds for Head Start in the Health and Welfare budget. Head Start expects to open 15 new classrooms.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Boise, the Senate majority leader, noted that the budget committee tapped into the same source of federal funds to underwrite Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s proposed early childhood development program.