U.S. 95 project in trouble

Lawmakers scaled back funding for the “Connecting Idaho” highway bonding plan Tuesday, angering the governor and threatening progress on a freeway from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint.

Chuck Winder, chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board, said the bonding plan approved by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee appears to shift millions from the Garwood-to-Sagle project on U.S. 95 to a project in eastern Idaho that’s not ready to go.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said he’s concerned the vote leaves a number of highway priorities without adequate funding. His $1.2 billion bonding proposal calls for major upgrades to accident-plagued U.S. 95, along with other routes. The idea is to use Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicles, or GARVEE bonds, to borrow against future federal highway allocations.

Basin commission money: Idaho would add more for the Coeur d’Alene Basin Commission under a plan approved by budget writers.

The Joint Finance- Appropriations Committee agreed Monday to pay for the group’s executive director, whose salary had been paid with federal funds that now are gone, and to pay for a year of contracted services from technical experts advising counties on the basin cleanup.

Toni Hardesty, state Department of Environmental Quality director, called the commission unique in the way it’s approaching Superfund cleanup.

“As far as I know, it’s the only one in the nation that operates this way, where it is more of a collaborative approach,” she said.

Medicaid reform advances: A bill laying the framework for Kempthorne’s Medicaid reform plan was approved by a state House committee Wednesday.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sharon Block, R-Twin Falls, divides the state’s Medicaid recipients into three categories – low-income children and adults, the disabled, and the elderly – to tailor the benefits offered to each group and to slow the fastest-growing portion of the budget.

The proposal passed 8-4 after two days of hearings packed the Health and Welfare Committee meeting room in the Statehouse.

“Previously, all the participants were in the same group, and the benefits couldn’t be limited for some without doing so for all,” Block said last week. “Some need the services, some don’t, so this legislation is moving away from the federal philosophy that one size fits all.”