Speaker, pro-tem on ed funding, tax cuts, literacy, session length, more…

Here’s more from House Speaker Scott Bedke and Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, who addressed the Idaho Press Club and took questions from reporters today:

EDUCATION: Hill said education funding is “without question” the greatest accomplishment of this year’s Legislature. “That’s where the governor put his emphasis in his State of the State, it’s where we put our emphasis as a Legislature,” he said. “The total appropriation for K-12 will probably be a little bit less than what the governor recommended, just because we need to leave a little bit more money on the bottom line,” but he said it’ll be “more generous” than most recent years.

Bedke said, “We’ll be at least the number we were at last year (a 7.4 percent increase in state general funds), which translates into about $110 million in new money to the K-12 system. While it’s not as much as some would like and it’s always more than others would like, I think it represents a continuing commitment,” both to the teacher career ladder and to restoring operational funds to pre-recession levels. “We were on a five-year trajectory” to accomplish that restoration, he said, “and we’ve cut that down to three. I think that is indicia of the Legislature’s commitment to the schools.”

Hill said the governor’s proposed budget left just $5 million unspent at the end of next year, and lawmakers want a year-end balance of $40 million to $60 million. “We just can’t cut ourselves that tight,” he said. Added Bedke, “No one was comfortable with only leaving $5 million in the checkbook and going home.”

TAX CUTS: Though a tax cut bill passed the House early in the session, Hill said in the Senate, “There’s been very little discussion about it one way or another. I don’t think we’ve talked about it in our caucuses at all.” He noted that Senate Tax Chairman Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, has made it clear he wants significant education funding improvements before tax cuts, but said he thinks Siddoway is pleased with the current direction on school funding.

“I think you’re probably going to see something in the Senate on that bill, if not completely the way it came to us, with some minor modifications,” Hill said.

HIGHER ED: Bedke and Hill said Gov. Butch Otter’s “tuition lock” proposal hasn’t gained traction in the Legislature, but Bedke said the House supports doing something to address rising university tuition rates. “I think we’ll end up doing something,” he said. “I think that the governor is pretty adamant about that. What form that takes at this point I don’t know.”

LITERACY: Bedke spoke out about the importance of early literacy, and predicted the governor’s literacy initiative will pass, though he didn’t promise it’d be fully funded at the governor’s $10.7 million level, saying it might get $7 million. “There is no excuse for not graduating third graders who can read at grade level,” he said, suggesting Idaho would be well-served to make that its top state policy focus. “That is the fundamental building block of everything else we’re doing.”

SESSION LENGTH: Hill predicted adjournment of this year’s legislative session March 24. But he also said if the Legislature is close to a solution on a complex issue like the health care coverage gap, “We’ll stick around for it if we need to.”