Eye on Boise: Idaho losing half its college grads within four years

The Legislature’s Economic Outlook & Revenue Assessment Committee heard a rather startling statistic last week from state Department of Labor Director Ken Edmunds: Idaho is losing half of its college graduates within four years of their graduation. “We’re only retaining 50 percent of our college graduates after four years – that’s a problem,” Edmunds told the lawmakers.

When Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, asked Edmunds, “What’s the solution?” he said all he could offer is his opinion. “We’ve been avoiding this issue for a long time, because our employers don’t like to hear it,” Edmunds said. “We don’t pay well.”

He said, “That’s a tough challenge. There’s no government solution to that – it’s a market condition.” In the coming years, Edmunds said, he expects Idaho wages to rise, due to that same market condition. “Our employers are going to be forced to pay more,” he said.

When Hill asked why employers aren’t willing to pay more now – since they’d have to pay more in other states – Edmunds said, “We haven’t really trained our people for the jobs we need, that’s what it boils down to. … We aren’t matching up our training at our universities and our professional-technical education programs, particularly professional-technical areas, to what our employers need. … If we don’t make some changes there, it could become a crisis.”

His comments came at the end of his presentation to the joint panel on Idaho’s employment outlook, which he said overall is good. “We’re very bullish concerning 2017,” Edmunds said.

In November, Idaho’s unemployment rate was the 11th lowest in the nation, and the department expects that to continue through 2016, with unemployment in Idaho remaining around 4 percent. The national unemployment rate for 2016 is expected to be between 4.8 percent and 5.2 percent.

Ronk tabbed for Commerce

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has named Megan Ronk the next director of the Idaho Department of Commerce. Ronk, the former chief operating officer at the department, started there four years ago as the department’s public information officer; she replaces Jeff Sayer, who left after four years to start a business consulting firm.

Prior to joining the department, Ronk was executive director of the Idaho Meth Project, a strategic projects manager for Blue Cross of Idaho, and a policy adviser to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. She also has been an adjunct faculty member teaching microeconomics at the College of Western Idaho since 2010, and a member of the Idaho Human Rights Commission since 2008.

“Megan has had a lot to do with the improvements we’ve seen in our economic development efforts under Jeff’s leadership,” Otter said in a statement. “She has a thorough understanding of state government’s role and priorities and what employers and entrepreneurs need in order to grow Idaho’s economy. I’m especially proud of the strong partnerships that Megan has helped build with businesses and local economic development leaders throughout our state. She is the right person to ensure that we continue to accelerate Idaho.”

Ronk holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the College of Idaho. She will be paid a salary of $130,000 a year in her new position, up from $105,352 in her previous one; Sayer made $153,858.

Ronk is the first woman to head the department. She and her husband, Jayson, who managed Otter’s re-election campaign and is the head lobbyist for Micron Technology, have two children and live in Meridian.

The appointment is subject to confirmation by the state Senate.

‘It’s the rule of law’

Otter was asked last week whom he most identifies with in Burns, Oregon, where armed protesters took over a federal wildlife refuge office to protest prison terms handed down to two area ranchers.

“Who do I most identify with? The rule of law,” Otter responded. “Without the rule of law, we have nothing. That’s what our whole system of government is built around.” He noted that he didn’t try to occupy the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service when he objected to its new sage grouse land-use rules. “It’s the rule of law, and there are peaceful and legitimate ways to do things, and one of the ways you’ve got to do ’em is without infringing on anybody else’s rights,” Otter said.

House Speaker Scott Bedke and Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill had similar responses. Bedke, a rancher, said he’s sympathetic to the ranchers, and believes their sentence was excessive. But, he added, “I don’t agree with the occupation of the federal buildings. I think that’s outside of the law. I agree with what the governor said earlier, that this whole thing comes apart at the seams if we don’t have the rule of law.”

Hill said he, too, is sympathetic to concerns about federal encroachment on state and individual rights, but said, “I do not condone their action to defy federal law and forcibly take over public property that doesn’t belong to you. I can’t condone that.”