Police pension board backs cost-saving plan

Spokane’s police pension board voted Wednesday to move ahead with a cost-saving plan in the city’s medical coverage for about 300 retired police officers.

The board’s 4-3 vote follows a similar decision by the fire pension board last week to endorse the cost-saving plan being advanced by city officials. The fire board voted 3-2 in favor of the move. In both cases, the no votes were cast by police and fire representatives on the two boards, which oversee disbursements to a combined 650 retired police and fire officers hired before Oct. 1, 1977.

Last week, Benefax, the city’s longtime administrator for the two public safety retirement health plans, resigned effective Jan. 1.

The city’s risk management department will assume administrative duties next year, which had been proposed in the cost-saving proposal.

Also, new competitive bids will be sought in 2007 for administrative and insurance management services.

City officials earlier said they could save $417,000 a year with the changes, but those figures were reduced last week to $336,800 annually.

– Mike Prager

Police seek burglar who changed mind

Investigators hope the fingerprints on a woman’s backdoor window will lead them to the burglar who entered her home last weekend while she was asleep.

The burglar went to a lot of trouble to break into the 86-year-old woman’s home, said Spokane police spokesman Cpl. Tom Lee.

But when she awoke to find the burglar at the foot of her bed, he said he’d be just a minute, then he almost immediately told the woman to just forget he was ever there.

The woman thinks only a key ring was missing from her home in the 2400 block of West Crown, Lee said.

When police responded to the residence late Saturday, the window was found in the backyard and taken into evidence, Lee said.

– Jody Lawrence-Turner

Moscow, Idaho

UI gets biodiesel deal worth $2 million

The University of Idaho signed a deal with an international company Wednesday that will provide the school $2 million over five years to research crops for biodiesel.

Under the agreement, Eco-Energy Ltd., based in Gibraltar, will pay for research into crops genetically modified for biofuel. The firm will have the first rights to commercialize any findings outside the U.S. It would not have any rights to the research in the U.S., officials said.

The research, led by UI plant breeder Jack Brown, will be looking for ways to genetically modify oilseed crops like mustard, rapeseed and canola for “designer energy oils.”

As concern over global warming rises, uses for biofuels that reduce or eliminate carbon emissions are expected to rise. At a news conference announcing the deal Wednesday, university and Eco-Energy officials said that the initial uses for such fuels are likely to be mostly in European countries and in smaller systems in developing countries. But they also said they could be used in the U.S. in some limited applications – such as the current biodiesel use in Yellowstone National Park.

– Shawn Vestal