Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Melissa Davlin: The state's wildfire season is getting longer and hotter, and home insurance companies are starting to notice.

So what should Idaho homeowners know as this becomes our new normal?

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello, and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Whitney Bryen of Investigate West joins me to discuss Idaho's high rate of incarceration for women and what policies contribute to that rate.

Dr Matthew May and Dr Lance McGinnis Brown discuss this year's Boise State University Public Policy survey.

And finally, Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron joins me to discuss how wildfires are changing the home insurance industry and what Idahoans should know.

But first, let's get you caught up on the week.

The Department of Justice notified Idaho this week that it is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because of how it administers its long term care program for adults with physical disabilities.

A DOJ investigation found that Idaho puts too many people in nursing facilities unnecessarily, without any plan to reintegrate them into the community.

The report found that many residents who are relatively young or have low care needs could live in the community with appropriate supports such as in-home caregivers, and cites the state's limited community services and over reliance on institutional settings.

We have much more online at IdahoReports.org, including a link to the findings, and we'll continue to follow the story.

St Luke's has filed a new lawsuit in federal court against the state of Idaho over its abortion ban.

The Idaho Capital Sun reports that the health system is seeking to extend court protections that allow for abortions in emergency situations, citing concern that the incoming Trump administration may drop the DOJ's existing lawsuit against the state.

Idaho's abortion ban has narrow exemptions for the life of the mother, but not for preserving or stabilizing the health of the mother.

The newly appointed Health and Social Services Ombudsman, Trevor Sparrow, appeared in front of the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee this week.

The legislature created the position to help identify ways the state could improve child protection and foster care services.

During the hearing, Sparrow fielded a question on other policy areas.

The office's citizens panel might consider.

Trevor Sparrow: Idaho has one of the highest, rates of incarcerated women in the United States.

And that translates into more kids in foster care.

So I think that, the citizen review panel can be utilized for helping, do some of that kind of research and how we can improve that and make legislative recommendations that way.

Joining me to discuss those high incarceration rates is Whitney Bryen of Investigate West.

Whitney, you reported on this this week.

What did you find out about women's incarceration rates in Idaho?

Whitney Bryen: Well, specifically in Idaho, we have the nation's highest rate of female incarceration.

So taking into account the population of states across the country, Idaho incarcerates more women than any other state.

And that's not new news.

We've been at the top of that list since 2019.

So we've held that position for a while.

And even before that, Idaho has been high on that list for about the past 20 years now.

Davlin: And that doesn't mean that Idaho has higher rates of crime, certainly not violent crime.

Bryen: Actually, it's the opposite.

So we found that Idaho has, is much safer than most other states around the country.

We actually have lower crime rates.

Especially in the violent crime area.

But, still incarcerating more women in our prisons.

Davlin: So what's driving those rates?

Bryen: It's largely about drug policy here in Idaho.

So the majority of women in our prisons, about 60%, they're there for drug possession or in some cases distribution or trafficking charges.

But that's the vast majority of women who we’re locking up, it's for drug crimes.

And they're staying there longer for those crimes than they would in other states as well.

So those sentences are longer.

We have the mandatory minimums, which means, you know, there's not very much wiggle room for a judge to decide whether, you know, a first time offender or, maybe there's, you know, something playing into a woman's decision to use drugs, trauma or something in her past.

There's no room for those decisions to be made about lower sentences here in Idaho.

Davlin: And as we heard from the Ombudsman, Trevor Sparrow, in that hearing, this has ripple effects on the community.

A lot of these women who are incarcerated are also mothers.

Bryen: Absolutely.

Something in the range of 80% of the women in our prisons are mothers.

I think that resonates across the country as well, but certainly is true here in Idaho.

Which of course means that, you know, those children are going into the system.

The likelihood that they're going to, you know, a biological father is actually much lower than if dad gets incarcerated and a child is, you know, more likely to go with mom.

So in Idaho, specifically, these women who have children are getting locked up, and then those kids are being taken into the system.

Davlin: And this is coming at a time where not just in Idaho, but across the nation, we're talking about drug policy.

We're talking about, you know, very real concerns about fentanyl use and overdoses and how that affects families in and of itself.

What are some of the policy recommendations that you heard out of this report?

Bryen: Well, that's very true.

And I've heard a lot of that discussion about the concerns around drug use and trafficking and distribution specifically.

But, you know, the report that I reported on has a lot of recommendations about treatment prior to drug use or in the early stages of drug use.

So let's say a woman gets arrested for having drugs on her person, right?

Rather than being taken straight to jail, going to the courts, getting sentenced for that possession, she could be taken to a treatment facility, a, you know, rehab type of facility.

A lot of these women in Idaho have experienced really significant trauma in their lives that eventually drove them to their addiction.

You know, they were abused as children or adults.

They experienced domestic violence.

And so in order to cope and deal with that pain.

They're turning to drugs.

So pre, you know, pre incarceration treatment is really a big recommendation that everyone I spoke to seems to be on board for.

Davlin: And these numbers came from the what is the Idaho Justice Project.

Bryen: Yes, the Idaho Justice Project put this report together, though the numbers themselves are actually state and federal data, most of which were provided by DOC here in Idaho.

Davlin: You also spoke to some lawmakers about the findings in this report.

What did they say?

Bryen: I did.

I spoke to a couple lawmakers who are on the Judiciary Committee, so they're making recommendations about criminal justice policy.

And they echoed those concerns about fentanyl especially, but drugs in general and use across the state of Idaho.

So they told me, you know, they're really struggling with their concerns about this high incarceration rate, especially of women, and the fallout that has on those women’s children and the system here in Idaho.

It's very expensive to incarcerate women and then take their kids into custody.

But they're also very concerned about drug crimes, drug use, especially drug trafficking and distribution.

So they're telling me, you know, they're trying to weigh the options.

How do we cut back on that and make that not okay here in Idaho?

How do we stop some of that drug use, but also try to address this high incarceration rate, so.

Davlin: And this comes already in the session, we've seen a bill to raise the minimum fine for marijuana possession to $300.

So obviously drug use and abuse is at the top of these lawmakers minds.

Has the governor weighed in?

Bryen: So the Governor didn't speak directly to this report.

I did reach out to him, but, didn't get him immediately.

What we have heard from him so far this year, though, and what I expect to hear more of, is similar to the lawmakers that I spoke to.

He's very concerned about drug use and will continue to support, it sounds like, legislation like possibly that marijuana bill that you mentioned.

He certainly supported the fentanyl minimum sentencing bill that we saw come through last year.

He's definitely in favor of cutting back on drug use and trafficking, you know, kind of some tough on crime policies there.

However, he's also trying to weigh incarceration rates and the cost of putting especially these women in prison for drug crimes.

So again, it's a tough balance and I think we're going to see more from him on how he's thinking about those two things.

Davlin: Right.

Certainly so many difficult societal issues to juggle there.

Whitney Bryen, Investigate West, thank you so much for joining us.

Bryen: Thank you.

Davlin: We're starting to get a good idea of what's on lawmakers to do list for the session, but how well does that line up with what Idahoans care about?

Joining me to discuss the most recent Boise State public policy survey is Dr Matthew May and Dr Lance McGinnis Brown.

Doctor May, let's start with you.

How do Idahoans feel about what track Idaho is on?

Matthew May: Generally, Idahoans have a much more optimistic view of the direction of the state this year compared to last year.

About, 49% think that we're headed in the right direction now.

This is, the first time we've seen an increase in that proportion since 2018.

And the gap is between right direction and wrong track is the largest it's been since, the last several years.

And we're outside of the margin of error for the first time in three years.

So generally, there's a sense of optimism, coming from Idahoans.

Davlin: How does that vary depending on different factors, like how long Idahoans have lived in the state, for example?

May: Generally long time Idahoans were a little bit, those who have lived in the state for more than ten years were a little bit more likely to say that we are off on the wrong track than newcomers were, and newcomers were a little bit more likely to say that we're headed in the right direction.

Which tracks, since there's had to be something that attracted them to come to the state in the first place.

Davlin: And I imagine that also varies depending on political affiliation.

May: 100%, definitely.

Republicans tend to favor the right direction answer by a substantial margin.

And at the same time, Democrats favored the wrong track answer by, an equally substantial margin.

Independents were a little bit in the middle, just very narrowly, skewing towards wrong track by about three points.

Davlin: How about policy priorities?

What do Idahoans want lawmakers to focus on?

May: So there are two major priorities we were able to glean from the results this year.

First, in a general sense, education remains the number one legislative priority.

And it has consistently ranked top of our survey results going back ten years.

So Idahoans are definitely unified in wanting to see something in education that what that actually looks like kind of depends upon who you ask.

Specifically, when we ask about a budget priority, the number one answer was, increasing teacher salaries.

But there were a range of other options.

Just underneath that, in terms of an overall legislative budget priority workforce and affordable housing was the top answer for the second consecutive year.

It's down six points from where it was last year, but it's still maintained a large proportion of Idahoans priorities.

Davlin: And Doctor McGinnis Brown, when we talk about the nitty gritty of those education policy concerns, what did you see?

McGinnis Brown: Yeah.

So we asked folks specifically what their top K-12 public school budget priority might be.

And the top response by far was teacher salaries.

And that was the top response regardless of party.

But you did see some more disagreement among Republicans.

It was the top response for Republicans.

But Republicans were also more likely to say allowing tax dollars to be used for private or religious education, while Democrats and independents were more likely to say buildings and facilities is the second choice.

Davlin: And when we talk about, whether we call it school choice or public dollars going to private education choices, there was also, as you mentioned, a difference in political party, what people favored versus what they opposed.

McGinnis Brown: Yeah.

And we followed up on the budget question with a question specifically about do you support or oppose the use of tax dollars to help pay for a private or religious education?

If a parent chooses not to send their child to a local public school?

This relates to a lot of discussion around school choice, but we wanted to avoid that terminology since it can mean so many different things and really focus on the nitty gritty of the language as we were aware of it.

What we found there is that a little more than half of folks oppose, with 37% strongly opposing while 38% are in support to some degree another.

But of course, you do have a strong party divide.

So Republicans are about 40 points more likely to support.

Davlin: And you touched on this, but there are so many different things that school choice can mean.

It can mean charter schools.

It can mean within a public school district, sending your child to an elementary school where you don't live in the zone.

It can mean public tax dollars.

Going to support homeschool.

Do you think that those responses might have been different had there been a specific policy proposal or a different choice in language?

McGinnis Brown: One thing we found last year is we asked a slightly different question, and we followed up by asking specifically if you thought that this proposal would affect help or hurt public school budgets, would that make you more in support or less in support?

And what we found is that if it hurt public schools, support would go down significantly.

What that really shows is that school choice, the details of the policy really have a major impact on people's attitudes about it and their willingness to support it.

Davlin: Sure, absolutely.

As with so many different things.

What did Idahoans say about Idaho's current abortion ban?

McGinnis Brown: We asked two questions about abortion access.

The first question was about the abortion timeline, ranging from total prohibition to within the first six weeks, first trimester fetal viability 22 to 24 weeks, and no restrictions.

Again, not surprisingly, you see a major partisan split on that, so the top response among Republicans was completely prohibited, with about a third of Republicans.

But the top response among Democrats and independents was no restrictions.

More than half of Democrats, about a third of independents.

When you combine those responses, stacking more permissive on less, what we find is crossing the majority threshold.

55% of overall respondents want to allow abortion access at least through that first trimester.

Davlin: How about exceptions for the health of the mother?

Because that's been the subject of so many court cases and also a lot of discussion among physicians and women.

McGinnis Brown: Yeah, we followed up on our timeline question with a question specifically about exceptions ranging from no exceptions to only allowing for documented cases of rape, incest, the life of the mother to including health of the mother and non-viable pregnancies, and finally no restrictions again.

Again, we find a partisan split.

So the top response for Republicans and independents was actually to include the health of the mother in non-viable pregnancies.

Well, the top response for Democrats was, again, no restrictions.

Again stacking more permissive responses onto less.

What we find is crossing that majority threshold.

64% of respondents want to include at least documented cases of rape, incest, death of the mother and health of the mother, and non-viable pregnancies as exceptions.

Davlin: Right.

There is so much more in this public policy survey.

We'll make sure to link to it at Idaho reports.org.

Doctor Lance McGinnis Brown.

Doctor Matthew May, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having us.

Davlin: The 2024 fire season in Idaho saw mandatory evacuations in communities across the state, like Stanley and Juliaetta and Cascade.

And the recent wildfires in Los Angeles served as a grim reminder how easily a fire can decimate a community.

Governor Brad Little held a press conference on Friday to highlight his budget recommendations regarding wildfire, including $100 million dollars to replenish the state's Fire Suppression Deficiency fund with $40 million dollars in ongoing annual funding for fire suppression preparedness.

The governor's office is also working with lawmakers this year to address the fire's impact on insurance and utility rates.

Brad Little: The expenses to the utility companies, ends up on all of your bills.

And it's the same thing with insurance.

If we have enormous fire claims like they're going to have in California, you know, those insurance companies in California are part of the insurance companies that we have here.

So it's literally in everybody's interest that we address the utility side of it, and we address the, the insurance side of it, because for a young family getting started, they got to pay their power bill and they got to pay their insurance.

Sometimes your insurance is in your mortgage payment, but that is something that everybody pays.

So anything we can do proactively ahead of time to keep the costs and utilities down and the cost of insurance down is good for all of Idaho.

Davlin: Joining me to discuss insurance and other issues is director Dean Cameron of the Department of Insurance.

Director Cameron, how do we keep those insurance costs down?

Cameron: Well, it's a it's a balancing act.

Insurance is about spreading risk.

It's about managing risk.

So there are strategies that have been put in place over the years on various types of insurance products that work.

And so we're proposing putting, putting forth some of those ideas for our property insurance market.

We have about 91 insurance companies that sell in Idaho.

Last number I saw was about 22 of those had asked to non-renewal certain policies in certain areas.

So it's becoming a problem.

Davlin: Basically saying we're not going to cover fire insurance for this part of the state or the entire state.

Cameron: They ‘re required once the contract signed, they're required to stay with them for a year.

But they can choose not to renew at the end of the year, or at the end of whenever they're contract terms.

Or they can raise rates dramatically.

We're starting to hear from homebuilders and and realtors and lenders that they've got houses for sale but aren't able to sell them because the new homeowner can't find insurance coverage.

And so it's becoming a larger and larger problem.

The way we manage it is by spreading the risk, helping homeowners prepare and harden their homes, and, and spreading the risk amongst the other carriers that are in the marketplace.

Davlin: What are you proposing the legislature do to address this?

Cameron: So we introduced a bill, and it's it's the first foray.

We're grateful for the legislature for printing the bill to start the discussion and have things move forward.

We've been working on this concept for more than, more than a year.

And really, thanks to the governor's leadership in, in trying to push forward the bill creates a high risk, pool, if you will, a wildfire risk pool.

Mitigation pool.

We mimicked part of it after what we saw in Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and a lot of southeastern states.

Davlin: Hurricane prone states.

Cameron: Hurricane prone states where they created a pool to help homeowners harden their homes against hurricanes.

They issued grants.

They were $10,000 grants.

I don't know what our amount will be just yet.

And those grants then were used to harden those homes.

That's resulted in their homeowners insurance having a reduction this year of almost 25%.

So we're seeing significant changes.

So that's Part A of the bill.

That's a strategy of to help homeowners, and and mitigate that risk.

The Part B is more of a stabilization factor.

How do we stabilize the market so that carriers will be in all parts of the state?

We have some carriers that will sell in certain parts of the state, but not in certain areas.

They they will exclude a specific county or region, or an area where it may be more prone to fire.

So we're trying to we're trying to employ strategies that have worked in other areas.

For example, in Idaho, we have our high risk pool for health insurance.

That's resulted in the number of carriers being doubled in Idaho since we started it.

And it's resulted in rates being down.

Our rates on the individual marketplace are lower today than they were five years ago.

Because of that high risk pool, and because of a 1332 waiver with the federal government.

Davlin: You touched on something that I want to circle back to, that there are carriers who will insure some parts of the state but won't offer property insurance or fire protection in other parts of the state.

Fire risk is not uniform across Idaho.

It's not even uniform within an individual, county or community.

And we know that the Department of Lands has a fire risk map and its Forest Action Plan.

How can you give us some insight into what the landscape is for a homeowner in, say, Bonner County versus Bennett County?

Cameron: Yeah.

So it's it's challenging.

It's also challenging depending on the insurance company, because there's no uniform standard that every company has to follow a certain modeling, that's being done.

And as fire risk has become, more challenging, there are more and more companies doing modeling to predict where forest fires might occur and how they might occur and etc.. We've seen and our information largely comes from agents or consumers who call us with complaints almost, a day doesn't go by right now.

And we're getting either a complaint about, their coverage being dropped or the rates going up.

We are also, interestingly, starting to get calls, as to how to harden their homes.

So in certain counties, so we had two years ago, we had a few carriers saying to us, we're staying in your state, but we're not going to sell in parts of Kootenai County or parts of Blaine County.

And then that spread and other carriers were doing more of that.

We even had situations in Bonner County where they were, you know, the county government was having difficulty finding coverage and other areas.

So it's really about how that community has responded.

It's also about how, how we've spread the risk if we've been able to mitigate the risk.

And so that's really what this pool is about, just is to try and help counties, communities, commercial businesses as well as residential homes harden their facility against forest fires.

Davlin: Let's talk about hardening facilities and properties a little bit because we've talked about Firewise landscaping for a long time in Idaho.

I've reported on it.

But seeing what happened, not just in Idaho in the past couple, fire seasons that were devastating, but also in California, where, some homes, because of their landscaping, were totally spared.

What can homeowners do outside of, you know, waiting for legislation to pass to harden their properties against wildfire risk?

Cameron: Yeah, there are a number of things they can do immediately that don't cost hardly anything.

You can put mesh in your eaves.

A lot of times fires are started from one house to another house because the embers will travel and fly up into through the eaves and then, end up in your attic and start your home on fire.

So you can do that.

You can move the juniper trees that we all love and love to have around.

Move them away from your homes.

Our fire officials call those gas cans because they can ignite like that.

And and then all of a sudden, the side of your house is on fire.

You can be wise about if you're building a home, if you're reroofing, if you're putting up fence.

Be wise about your choices of the materials.

We did a demonstration earlier this year.

We did.

We held a wildfire forum where we built two structures.

They looked identical.

One was built with fire retardant material.

The other was built with traditional material.

The one was built with traditional material burned to ground.

We learned both on fire and it was a fun part of the job.

Davlin: At the same time, right?

Cameron: At the same time let them both on fire.

But one had fire retardant vegetation, fire resistant vegetation, I would say, and fire retardant bark.

One burned to ground and in less than 20 minutes.

And the other, didn't have any effect whatsoever.

It was so hot you couldn't touch it, but it still did not burn.

So if you're if you're building, if you're in the process of building now, it wouldn't it doesn't even cost so much more to build with fire resistant material.

Put the fire resistant shingles on, have the eaves put in, all of those kinds of things.

And Firewise has been a great advocate, for many of those things for years.

And it's just sort of been out of the limelight a little bit.

And now we're hoping to push it much forward again.

Davlin: Whether we're talking about a high risk pools with within the insurance industry or, more, let's say, heavy handed legislation that would keep costs low at what point does that artificially lower costs and encourage people to move to areas that are very high risk, that are prone to wildfires, as opposed to letting the market decide, you know, what makes sense where people live?

Cameron: Yeah.

So the market already has an influence based on where they live.

You're certainly in a good market.

Your rates are different if you live in areas that are more prone to fires than if you live in communities.

But, I mean, we only have to look and see what's gone on in California.

Nobody is exempt, right?

The sad part is, out of all the catastrophic events that have occurred across the country, whether you're talking about hurricanes, earthquakes or what have you.

Forest fires are preventable.

Forest catastrophic loss can be prevented and can be mitigated.

It's about making the choices.

And even if you are living in urban areas, you're paying the price for this right now.

Your rates are are have a reflection of the costs that are occurring.

That's what the governor was saying in his comments, is your rates are influenced based on what's going on in the Idaho market, but also what's going on in the market in other areas.

Davlin: And as we know, weather events are becoming more extreme have been for years.

And that trend isn't reversing.

So, what kind of reception have you received from lawmakers on this plan?

We have about 20s left.

Cameron: Yeah.

Obviously this is the first I want to thank them for, introducing the bill.

Lots of questions.

Support.

Also questions about, you know, how does this work?

And understandably so.

And it's complicated.

I think we'll have newer versions and it'll probably be amended.

I've.

We've had one.

Davlin: We have leave it there.

Thank you so much, director, and thank you for watching.

We'll see you next week.

Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.