Governor's 2013 budget to include increases to education

The Governor, in his State of the State address Monday called for a 3.1 percent increase in General Fund spending, reflecting what he says is a slow, but steady growth in the economy. Some of the highlights:

Education

His requests include increased funding for K-12 education, although he stressed that he does not seek to “simply revisit issues” related to the recently overturned Students Come First measures.

Instead, he’s asking the State Board of Education to seek input from a broad cross-section of stakeholders and identify elements of school improvement on which there is broad agreement.

Economy:

The Governor sited a falling unemployment rate over the last 17 months as evidence of a slowly improving economy. Idaho’s first reduction in unemployment insurance rates in several years will result in about $50 million in savings to Idaho employers in 2013.

LINE Commission:

The governor commended work done by his Leadership in Nuclear Energy or LINE Commission in 2012, saying their work is not about making Idaho “the nation’s nuclear dumping ground,” but about focusing efforts on options for securing, enhancing and leveraging work being done at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Center for Advanced Energy Studies. He pointed out his commitment to enforcing the terms of the 1995 agreement with the federal government to get all nuclear waste out of Idaho by 2035, acknowledging that the path toward that end is unclear now that the Yucca Mountain facility is not planned to open.

Personal Property Tax:

The governor sited the elimination of personal property tax as an area where there is consensus, acknowledging the tax represents for some counties a significant part of how they pay for public services. His budget sets aside $20 million for easing this transition for those counties.

Heath Exchange:

In addressing Idaho’s impending Health Insurance Exchange under the tenants of the Affordable Health Care act, the governor noted that taking advantage of this alternative is better what he says would be “an unresponsive, one-size-fits-all federal exchange wreaking havoc on some of America’s most reasonable costs of coverage,” and preserves the option for Idaho citizens to have a voice in how one element of that law is implemented.

Medicaid:

Rather than following the advice of the Medicaid work group he assembled last summer, which included Health and Welfare Director Dick Armstrong, Representative Fred Wood, Senator Patti Anne Lodge and Senator Dan Schmidt, the governor said he is asking Director Armstrong to lead an effort to flesh out a plan for changing Idaho’s system with an eye toward the potential costs, savings and economic impact. This is a process he hopes will pay off with a specific proposal in 2014.

Physicians:

Idaho has the sixth-oldest physician workforce in America, and we rank 49th in the nation for doctors per capita, a formula the governor says will be trouble unless we step up efforts to get beyond the 20 medical school seats available for Idaho students each year. This is the same number of seats available to us since 1972, when Idaho’s population was less than half what it is today.

To this end, his budget proposal includes two facets:

-       Funding rural rotation training for the residency program at the Boise VA Medical Center,

-       Funding five additional seats in the WWAMI collaborative medical school program at the University of Washington, the extra seats slated for students in the Targeted Rural and Under-Served Track or TRUST program for Idaho students

Inmates:

The Governor noted his support of the Department of Correction’s request for permission to issue $70 million in bonds for a 579-bed secure mental health facility at the prison complex south of Boise, siting the more than one in four inmates dealing with some form of mental illness. This is a revamp of an earlier request by Correction Director Reinke, that had been approved by the legislature.

Wildfire:

This past year, wildfire suppression costs approached a cost of a quarter-billion dollars as well as impacts on the environment, public health, property, and the unrealized benefits of healthy, actively managed forests and rangeland. The Governor’s budget includes a request for $400,000 to help create four more volunteer fire protection associations like one formed by Mountain Home-area ranchers last summer.

“Nonprofit groups like theirs can assist the BLM, Idaho Department of Lands and rural fire districts in fighting and maybe even preventing catastrophic wildfires on the nearly two-thirds of Idaho land ‘managed’ by the federal government,” he said

State Water Plan:

The Governor sited the newly revised State Water Plan being submitted this session as another example of our Idaho preference for actively managing our natural resources. This plan represents the first update since 1996, and it reflects use of the latest technology in better evaluating our needs and the status of our water supplies.

He noted that for the first time includes includes strategies and milestones for executing management policies and evaluating their effectiveness.