Otter weighs early education program cuts

BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter is considering scaling back early childhood education initiatives once championed by his predecessor, Dirk Kempthorne.

Administration officials said a drop in federal funding, combined with Otter’s goal of reducing state government, is behind the decision.

“None of this makes any sense to me,” Kempthorne’s wife, Patricia, told the Idaho Statesman. “It feels like we’re moving backward.”

She still works on family issues with her own foundation and backs many of the programs put forward by her husband, now the U.S. interior secretary.

Otter plans to cut $1.5 million in spending for early childhood education programs and end citizen councils on families, children, suicide prevention and teen pregnancy.

Otter’s plan could also end all state money for Parents as Teachers, a program that teaches parents how to keep young children healthy and prepare them for school.

“I am hopeful the PAT program, or other programs similar to it, will continue to grow in Idaho by running with a leaner budget or through grants or other alternate funding resources,” said Tom Luna, superintendent of public instruction.

In his first State of the State speech in 1999, Kempthorne announced his Generation of the Child. But lawmakers balked at much of that agenda, so Kempthorne created councils through executive orders.

Those include the Governor’s Coordinating Council for Families and Children, the Council on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and the Suicide Prevention Council.

In 2006, just before Kempthorne resigned to take the Interior Department post, the councils were consolidated under the Executive Office for Families and Children.

Otter plans to dissolve that office June 15.

Mark Warbis, Otter’s spokesman, said Otter wants to eliminate boards and councils that aren’t delivering measurable results.

“You start losing focus,” he said. “It’s public services by committee.”

Warbis said the programs will be merged into the Health and Welfare divisions. But Patricia Kempthorne questioned the plan.

“To me, less government means more citizen involvement,” she said. “What’s happening is they’re moving all that into the bureaucracy. The sadder part is that I don’t know who’s being helped, and I think the children and families are losing.”