Kempthorne Signs Immunization Plan Legislature, However, Balks At Funding

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne signed Idaho’s new immunization registry plan into law Thursday, but the Legislature didn’t give him any money for it.

“We’re going to make it happen, no matter what,” Kempthorne said shortly after signing the measure amid a crowd of fidgeting toddlers at a Boise day-care center. “It’s too important. … We owe it to the kids.”

The voluntary registry is a key part of Kempthorne’s plan to boost Idaho’s immunization rate for 2-year-olds from among the worst in the country to among the best. The rate jumped from 72 percent to 79 percent in recent months - an increase state officials called an encouraging sign. Kempthorne wants it raised to 90 percent within two years.

The recent increase has been credited to efforts by doctors, hospitals, the Idaho Immunize by Two coalition and other public and private groups pushing immunization.

Karl Kurtz, the new state Health and Welfare director, said, “No state has reached that 90 percent level, but with such effective partnering and establishment of a voluntary immunization registry, I am convinced more than ever we can get the job done in Idaho.”

The governor had requested $98,000 in the state budget to set up the registry in the coming year, but legislative budget writers didn’t give a cent to the program.

Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, vice-chairwoman of the Legislature’s budget committee, said, “It simply got left in the dust when we were fighting through some of the other things that came in to us kind of late.”

“I do recall that we were told there would be a lot of volunteer effort on that,” she said.

“I can’t help but think if they needed money, we’d have heard about it, because we were hearing about everything right up to the end,” she said.

Jim Hawkins, the former state commerce director who is volunteering as chief of the immunization effort, said some Health and Welfare funds for promoting immunization will help his push, and he has already received an anonymous gift of $10,000 for the registry program.

The registry will track children’s immunizations, allowing parents and doctors to keep up to date on which shots are needed when.

“We have some support from the private sector,” Hawkins said.

He said he is still developing a budget for the registry program, and isn’t sure yet whether he’ll need the $98,000 Kempthorne had requested. But, he said, “It was a reasonable figure.”

Without funds from the state budget, he plans to do some of the work himself, seek private contributions and enlist volunteers. “I have three or four people that are extremely knowledgable in the development of software,” he said. “I’m doing the scouting personally.”

If necessary, Hawkins said, he may ask next year’s Legislature for a supplemental appropriation. That’s a late commitment of state money for the fiscal year that’s already in progress.

Bell said that was a possibility. “By that time, maybe they’ll have the way that’s going to work, who’s going to do it … and the funding they were going to have from private sources,” she said. “It was one of those things, like the children’s initiative, it was kind of a work in progress as we went along.”

Lawmakers killed Kempthorne’s proposed early childhood development initiative this year, with some critics saying the governor just hadn’t provided them with enough information about the program. Others suggested it contained ominous signs of government intrusion into families.

Those same fears were raised about the immunization registry, with the Idaho Christian Coalition and other groups packing a legislative committee hearing that ran long into one evening to complain about the bill.

Conservative Rep. Bill Sali, R-Meridian, then completely rewrote the bill to add in extra protections for parents who object to immunizations, guarantees that the data wouldn’t be made public or be widely distributed, and extra options for parents who get on the registry, but then decide to withdraw from it.

Sali attended Kempthorne’s Boise bill-signing Thursday, and praised the final legislation. “This represents the first time there is very clear statutory protection” for parents who oppose immunization, he said.

Also attending the signing was Sen. Jack Riggs, R-Coeur d’Alene, a physician who pushed strongly for the legislation. “It’s very difficult to get all the shots by age 2, and that medically is the goal,” he said.

Though Idaho’s immunization rates rise by the time children enter school, the low rates among babies and toddlers have led to fatal outbreaks of whooping cough in North Idaho.

This sidebar appeared with the story: FAST FACT Early shots Though Idaho’s immunization rates rise by the time children enter school, the low rates among babies and toddlers have led to fatal outbreaks of whooping cough in North Idaho.