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: Idaho has 44 counties, and the county in which you die has a big impact on the investigation into your death.

Or whether there's an investigation at all.

I'm Melissa Devlin.

Idaho reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Audrey Dutton of ProPublica.

And Casey Petty from the Office of Performance Evaluations joined me to discuss Idaho's coroner system, the lack of oversight, and how that can sometimes adversely affect families.

Then Kevin Richard of Idaho Education News brings us up to date on school bonds and levies and more.

But first, four women have sued the state of Idaho after they were forced to go out of state to terminate their wanted pregnancies.

Idaho's abortion ban prohibited them from ending their pregnancies in the state, even if continuing the pregnancies threatened their health.

That trial started on Tuesday.

The trial, taking place in Idaho's fourth district, is the latest court challenge of Idaho's abortion ban.

Producer Ruth Brown has more.

Ruth Brown: All four women reported that their babies had severe genetic or development issues that would have prevented the fetuses from surviving after birth.

The women explained that the longer they stayed pregnant, the higher the risk was for their health.

Attorneys are asking the court to declare Idaho's law unconstitutional for certain pregnant patients that those with preexisting conditions that cannot be treated during pregnancy, pregnancies that endanger the mother's life, and pregnancies that have lethal fetal diagnoses.

Idaho physicians testified about the medical and ethical concerns around not being able to help a patient when they need a medically necessary abortion.

Gail Deady: These are real people who are stepping up to stop what happened to them from ever happening again.

They are fighting to make sure that pregnant Idahoans can get the abortion care that they need to protect their health and their lives.

They are an inspiration to me.

Every day.

Idaho state officials have tried to throw this case out twice now, turning a blind eye to the realities faced by their own citizens.

But we refuse to let them get away with this.

The state of Idaho must be held accountable for the suffering that they have caused.

Brown: The trial will continue next week, and the state will offer its defense.

Davlin: Death eventually comes for all of us.

But depending on where you die in Idaho, an investigation into your death might not follow.

Casey Petti with the Office of Performance Evaluations and Audrey Dutton of ProPublica, joined me on Friday to discuss Idaho's lack of oversight and sideboards on how Idaho's coroners run their offices.

Thank you both so much for joining us this week.

Casey, we'll start with you.

What did lawmakers ask your office to look into?

Casey Petti: So, the way that our office works is we get requests from legislators, to look into different programs and policies in the state.

And, a legislator raised concerns around the death investigation system in Idaho.

So, we've had some pretty high profile deaths in Idaho over the last few years.

And there's some stuff in the news that was concerning.

And so this legislature legislator was concerned that, the way the death investigations were being conducted, County by county varied, and that there were deaths in some counties that were being fully investigated.

Whereas in other counties those deaths were not being investigated and there were not autopsies.

And so, we were basically asked to look at how is Idaho's death investigation system working?

What do other states do?

What are some key metrics for death investigation?

Like what are the funding for individual county coroner's and, how many autopsies are coroners conducting?

Davlin: For those who aren't familiar.

Idaho, of course, has 44 counties.

That means 44 individually elected coroners, one for each county.

But that doesn't mean 44 similar ways of doing things county by county.

Petti: Yeah.

That's correct.

So there's 44, corners in Idaho because there's one for each county.

And because I know code is so vague on the duties and responsibilities of coroners, we found that there's wide variance in how they actually perform their duties.

And so just to dial back really quick.

So Idaho is not very unique in its design of the death investigation system.

So there's 28 states that have coroners.

There's 14 states that exclusively use county or district coroners.

And then there's 14 states that use a combination of county coroner's or county medical examiners, a medical examiner similar to a coroner, except they're typically a medical professional that is appointed.

And so in the design, it's not very unique.

But what we found is in Idaho code, it's very vague on what the actual duties are for corners.

And so in a lot of other states, it's pretty well defined that, you know, there's certain deaths that need to be autopsy.

For example, you know, a child death or maybe a death, under law enforcement care.

Those are typically autopsied in other states, in Idaho.

It's up to the individual coroner themselves to decide whether or not an autopsy is performed.

I know code is very vague on when deaths need to be reported to a coroner.

And so there's national standards that kind of lay out, you know, these are the deaths that should be reported to your medical legal death investigation system.

It's things like, you know, suicides, accidents, but also, you know, individuals who die under police custody.

Individuals who die at work, things like that.

We found that nationally, states, usually in their state code have 15 different types of deaths that need to be reported to a coroner or the medical legal death investigation system in Idaho.

There's only ten, and it's missing a lot of the ones that are, you know, very common in other states like that.

Individuals who die under police custody.

And so, because of how vague Idaho Code is and how little direction it provides, how a coroner carries out their duties, is up to the individual coroner, which creates a very diffused and fractured system.

Davlin: And Audrey, you found real world examples, real life examples rather of how this is affecting Idahoans.

Now these differences in how coroners investigate or don't investigate deaths.

Audrey Dutton: Right.

So as part of our look at medical legal death investigations, we focused on children and infants.

Partly because the OPE report found Idaho has the lowest rate of autopsies in deaths of children that you'd typically expect to be, overseen by a coroner.

And in the process, I've looked through probably between 250 and 300 coroner reports and autopsy reports for child and infant deaths and found wide variation.

There is very little consistency from county to county or from corner to corner within a county.

Partly because there aren't those sort of, encoded standards for coroners in Idaho.

Davlin: You found one example from eastern Idaho that really stood out in your reporting.

Dutton: That's right.

It was the case of Onix Cooley.

He was a two month old, in Bingham County, where he was living with his mom.

He was she woke up one morning and found him dead.

And he was taken to a hospital in a neighboring county and in Bonneville County.

That's right.

And what I think is most interesting about this case is how it illustrates the lack of consistency from county to county, because when I looked at the report that the coroner in Bonneville County did, there was no scene investigation by the coroner.

There was no reenactment of how the baby was found and left.

There was no autopsy performed.

The coroner did not contact the family at all.

And when I looked at the Bingham County coroner's records, they did follow national standards.

So it's sort of, you know, if baby had been pronounced dead in the first county, it would have been completely different.

Davlin: But they took because they took baby to the hospital, tried to resuscitate him in Idaho Falls, and he was declared dead in Bonneville County.

There was no report.

There was no investigation other than saying what was it, a paperwork autopsy that the coroner said when he resigned at office.

It's.

That's right.

And that lines up with your findings, Casey, that that wide variation and not necessarily following national standards and recommendations.

Petti: Yeah.

And so I mean, there's a lot that goes into the differences between counties.

And I think one thing that is is important to acknowledge is the difference in funding for counties, because autopsies are not cheap.

And so, most counties in Idaho, use Ada County as their kind of defacto forensic pathologist.

And so if you are in, you know, central, southern, east or western Idaho and someone dies for an autopsy, they're going to go to Ada County.

Those autopsies cost about $2,300 each.

And then if you are in eastern Idaho, you have to also factor in, you know, the cost of transportation because you may not have a vehicle to transport a dissident.

And so that's several hundred dollars as well.

You might have to factor in, the cost for hotel because it's a two day trip, because it's a six hour drive to Boise.

And so all of that adds up.

And so for an autopsy, you're looking at, you know, anywhere from 3 to $4000.

A lot of these corners, their budgets are $20,000 a year.

And so decisions have to be made.

And unfortunately, in conversations I had with coroners, they, they try to say that they, they don't take into account finances, but inevitably finances probably do come up.

Davlin: You mentioned something that I want to circle back to.

So I assume that regardless of where I die in the state, my body would be transported in a an appropriate refrigerated vehicle to the place my body needs to go.

You're saying that that's not necessarily the case if you die in certain parts of the state?

Petti: Yeah.

Unfortunately, not every county has an adequate vehicle to transport decedents.

And so in conversation I had with coroners, I learned that some are using their private vehicles, you know, maybe a truck with a cabin on the back.

Some are using Suburbans.

Which is potentially dangerous because you're driving in an open air vehicle with a potentially decomposing body.

Some, counties do contract with a funeral home that might have a more appropriate vehicle.

But again, you're looking at anywhere from 5 to $2000 for that transportation.

And, so it really varies between the counties on, whether or not they have an adequate vehicle that extends to other things, such as coolers to store a decedent.

There are some counties that, have had their own cooler that secured.

But most counties do not.

And so they have to find a place to store a dissident.

Before it can be transported for an autopsy.

And that could be anywhere from a local hospital, or it could be a local funeral home.

But then there's a lot of issues with that where it breaks the, chain of custody over the body.

And best practices typically say that you shouldn't be using an independent third party for transportation or for storage.

Davlin: And, Audrey, this has real effects on the surviving family members.

You know, back to back to Onix.

And his mother and father are left wondering why he died.

Dutton: Right.

And they'll never get an answer because he's been cremated.

You know, the opportunity to investigate that death is is gone.

And it's a black box now.

This has implications for, you know, the kind of question of why does it matter and not only matters to the parents, it matters to public health.

If there was something potentially relating to Onyx, that or how he was, you know, how he was sleeping or something like that that could be learned from this is how we figured out crib death wasn't a thing.

It was put babies on their backs and make sure that they don't have stuffed animals in their crib.

And those sorts of things.

That's a public health issue.

But then there's also the question of what about the other children?

Is there some genetic problem that wasn't detected?

So, you know, looking at these not only from a case by case, but the public health and the overall family and just figuring out what happened and not being left with questions.

Davlin: Casey, we have about a minute left.

But briefly, what are the recommendations for the legislature to address this?

Petti: So really quick, we we recommended that, the legislature adjust the way that, funds are used that are collected from, death certificates.

So $1 for each death certificate right now can go towards coroner education.

We recommended also allowing that to be used for coroner certification.

And then we also recommended that the legislature look at these various gaps of Idaho code.

So in in our report we have about 10 or 15 different areas that we felt that Idaho code is lacking.

And we gave some examples of what other states are doing.

And right now there is a a group, that, that some legislators that are part of, including Senator Windrow and Representative Pickett, who are the J-law co-chairs, and they're putting together legislation to hopefully create some definitions for terms that are vague right now in Idaho code and also provide more state level guidance for coroners.

Davlin: All right.

We'll be sure to keep following that story.

Casey Petty, Office of Performance Evaluations Audrie Dutton, ProPublica.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

And we'll be sure to link your report and your excellent investigative reporting on our website.

That's IdahoReports.org There were a couple significant headlines that came out of the November 5th election.

Gave us a few things to talk about, but I don't want to lose sight of the school bond and Levy results that also came out that night.

Here to bring us up to date is Kevin Richert from Idaho Education News.

Kevin, real quick remind us what was on the ballot.

Kevin Richert: So we had 24 supplemental levies around the state.

And we had four planned facilities levies, which are a little bit different there basically for building maintenance.

And we had two bond issues.

Add it all up.

There were $259 million worth of school ballot measures on the ballot on November 5th.

Most of them passed, so $169 million worth of bond of levies passed because neither of the bond issues passed.

So by and large school districts fared reasonably well on election night.

Davlin: And for those who aren't familiar who haven't watched these discussions before, remind us of the threshold for bond and levy passages.

Richert: Supplemental levies need only a simple majority to pass, which is why probably shouldn't be surprising that 22 of the 25 supplemental levies passed on election night bond issues very different.

Two thirds supermajority required.

That's difficult to get on any election day, especially maybe in a presidential election when you've got really high turnout.

Davlin: Really high turnout across the state.

Of the 169 that did pass with the levies, what are some highlights in their?

Richert: Biggest one of the bunch is Coeur d'Alene.

They got a two year, $50 million supplemental levy through.

The supplemental levies are a big deal for a lot of districts like Coeur d'Alene.

I mean, I think it's about almost a quarter of their budget comes out of the supplemental levy.

So you start talking about a levy, you know, if a levy fails, these districts have really difficult decisions to face.

And we're starting to see that unfold in the at least one of the districts that didn't get a levy through in.

Davlin: What was that district.

Richert: That's Lakeland.

That's another district up north.

They had a two year, $19 million, I want to say a supplemental levy.

It failed.

You had to have patrons up there saying bring something back in May the next date that they can run a supplemental levy, bring something back smaller and see what what they can do, because they're talking about, you know, it's almost inevitable because this levy takes up about a quarter of their budget or comprises of out of the quarter of their budget, that they'd almost have to look at some sort of staff reductions to absorb that loss.

Davlin: What are some of the other ones that failed?

Richert: Now we'll talk about the bond issues.

And the biggest one of the bunch was in Soda Springs.

They were seeking about $55 million to replace an aging high school that failed and didn't really come close to the two thirds super majority.

Davlin: For those that failed.

You had mentioned with Lakeland, you know you're looking at possible staff reductions.

What are some of the other consequences for those districts?

Richert: You know, it's interesting.

I mean, for for them, that's definitely a possibility of having to make some staff reductions.

We've seen this happen elsewhere.

One of the levies that passed in November was in Caldwell.

Now, back in May, they had an identical levy that failed, required the district to go back and look at Stafford Auctions, SROs, for example.

They had to close a middle school.

They also had institute a pay to play fee for student athletes.

So now they have a levy that passed.

So that'll be in effect for the next budget year.

So it'll be interesting to see what Caldwell winds up doing about some of the the cuts that they had to make in the wake of the failed levy back in May.

Davlin: And the elections aren't over.

Whoever ends up in House and Senate leadership and with certain committee chairs is going to have a big say in the future of school policy over the next two legislative sessions, including potentially school funding issues.

Richert: School funding issues, school elections issues.

One of the things that has come out now that we wrote about in the past few days, school officials are talking about trying to get the state to look at maybe relaxing some of the rules on supplemental levies right now, schools have nothing that many options.

They can run a 1 or 2 year supplemental levy, or under certain circumstances, they can ask voters to approve a permanent supplemental levy.

But those are, you know, very rare circumstances where a district can even ask for that.

Coeur d'Alene asked for that in 2023.

Voters said no.

So you have districts like Coeur d'Alene looking for maybe kind of a Goldilocks approach where you can have something in the middle, maybe a supplemental levy that runs for up to six years.

So you don't have this constant churn of going back to voters every year or two, and the uncertainty that that creates for your budget.

Davlin: And I noticed that in the coverage in the lead up to this election, that there were a number of levies that were basically re-upping ones that had been in place.

And if anything, it would be a smaller hit on people's property tax bills than what they had previously passed before because of changing circumstances that but again, the districts have to go back to voters every two years, over and over again and cross their fingers.

Richert: And all it takes is one failed supplemental levy to create some real budget problems for a district.

Caldwell had a levy in place for a long time, until May, when voters said no.

So, you know, there's definitely appetite from the schools to have some sort of flexibility, whether there's appetite in the legislature to do that.

This is a legislature that has very clearly tried to to pare down school elections and winnow down the options that schools have to, to put bonds and levies on the ballot in the first place.

Davlin: And so many new faces in this upcoming legislature.

Of course, we also have some higher ed updates.

Let's start with the University of Phoenix.

What's the latest?

Richert: We wanted to look back and see what exactly is happening, on the University of Idaho University of Phoenix deal.

At this point, there isn't a whole lot of breakthrough going on.

We do know that their conversations going on, everybody told me, for the story that they did this week that you have I is talking state board members are talking.

Governor's office is involved, talking with Phoenix, talking with Apollo, which is, Phoenix's, ownership group, talking also with legislators.

And, you know, we remember last session, the legislature was pretty skeptical about this idea.

And we know that this is going to come back before the legislature in January.

So it's all kind of under the under the screen, under the radar right now.

It's all kind of behind the scenes.

It will become a lot more public again come January.

Davlin: And so as far as the what now it's wait and see.

Richert: It's wait and see and it's wait and see on a lot of stuff.

One of the things that I got into in my, my story on Thursday, we still have a lawsuit pending before the state Supreme Court, Attorney General Raul Labrador, his lawsuit that would basically, might force the state Board of Education to start all over again in terms of its approval of this, purchase that is still pending five months out from oral arguments.

So we'll wait and see what happens there as well.

Davlin: You also had a story this week about Idaho State University expressing interest in maybe buying or acquiring the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is a private medical school in Meridian.

Richert: Another private college that that may go into public ownership.

This is a little bit different situation for a lot of reasons.

First of all, first and foremost, ICOM, the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine isn't for sale.

It's not on the block right now.

But everybody I spoke to indicated that it will be at some point.

It's a little bit like Phoenix in the sense that, you know, ICOM is partially owned by a private equity firm, and private equity firms tend to get to a point where they sell off assets.

So, you know, the president of ICOM told me this week it's expected that at some point this will be for sale.

What's interesting is that Idaho State is looking at the feasibility of acquiring this.

I spoke to House speaker Mike Moyle about it, this week.

He's, he's interested.

He wants to know more details.

He says, you know, he wants the state to be in a position.

Should ICOM be for sale?

Lots of connections right now as it is between Idaho State University and ICOM.

They basically share a campus in Meridian.

There are, you know, they have been in affiliated relationship from the beginning.

You have a board of trustees where the president previously was on the board of trustees, and other high ranking Idaho state administrator is on the board.

So there's there are a lot of connections between these two.

And maybe the biggest connection is Idaho State has historically been the state's lead university on health care professions, health care majors.

And Robert Wagner, the new president at Idaho State, has made pretty clear that he wants to assert that he wants to continue to look for ways to partner with other institutions and to cement Idaho State's, position in the health care professions.

Davlin: And this, to me, is an intersection of so many interesting and important policy issues in Idaho right now, you have higher education.

Idaho's go on attempts and workforce readiness efforts, like with launch, the abortion ban and how that's contributed to the OB/GYN shortage in the state, the ongoing existing health care worker shortage in the.

Richert: State, severe shortage of health care workers around the state and an aging population.

So, and a growing population.

So there are a lot of forces at play, which is part of why really all of the colleges and universities are very interested in trying to figure out ways to expand their health care footprint as well.

So it's not just Idaho State that wants to expand its footprint and it will be interesting to see how that all plays out because, you know, there's already kind of indications that there's some competition, right now for, for some of these health care, a share of this health care market, the health care professions market.

So it'll be really interesting to see what happens from here.

Davlin: Launches something else that plays into that future of it has been in question in previous legislative sessions, but it's popular with high school seniors.

Richert: Launches future may be in doubt, but there really is no doubt about one of the things we're seeing with lunch the most popular profession, the most popular, in-demand career for lunch recipients this year, nursing.

Davlin: Good for Idaho's aging population.

Who needs those nurses?

I will say, I did want to ask you about the lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference, involving, transgender athletes and specifically, San Jose State University, player doesn't directly involve Idaho, except that there are two BSU volleyball players who are part of who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

And we are BSU is, of course, part of that conference.

Richert: And BSU has been central to this whole story that has unfolded this fall.

You've had four universities, including Boise State in the Mountain West Conference, that have forfeited matches against San Jose State because of, you know, the reported transgender player on San Jose State's roster.

So the lawsuit gives us a little bit more insight into what may have been happening behind the scenes with Boise State leading up to that first forfeit.

It sounds like, you know, players were involved to some degree in the conversation that led up to the administration deciding to forfeit that first match.

They have since, forfeited a second match involving San Jose State.

Yeah.

And this is an issue that we've seen, discussed and debated at the state level for several years.

We have a transgender athletics, law that's been, that was passed, I believe, in 2020.

So, you know, this has been an issue for several years.

This volleyball dispute has really brought it to a national playing.

I mean, this has become a national sports story and one that is far from over at this point because of the lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday, it's leading up to the Mountain West Conference's volleyball tournament, which is the end of November.

A lot's happening on this on this story now.

Davlin: And I and I read, the initial filing, the lawsuit yesterday, multiple claims in there, including violations of students, First Amendment free speech rights and 14th Amendment equal protection rights specifically, as well as title nine, which guarantees women, equal opportunities in athletics.

Richert: And really, from a Boise State perspective, what I focused on in my story was the allegation that the Mountain West changed its policy regarding transgender athletics and potentially forcing schools to forfeit matches or games involving, an opponent with a transgender athlete.

The lawsuit contends that that policy was changed the same day that Boise State announced its first forfeit.

That's in dispute.

Mountain West has said that they've had this policy in place for some time, at least for a couple of years.

That's going to play out in the court.

Davlin: Sure.

And there's a difference, you know, did they have the policy in place?

But then they did.

They didn't.

Did they then tweak it?

Richert: Exactly.

That's going to be a bone of contention in this, in this lawsuit.

Davlin: Yeah.

And one of the things that I'll be keeping an eye on is whether or not people can speak about this in nuanced ways, as opposed to inflammatory ways, against all of the athletes and parties involved.

Richert: And it's one of the most emotional issues in athletics and in education right now.

And, you know, at Boise State and the Mountain West Conference are at the heart of it.

Davlin: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Kevin Archer, we have about 30 seconds left.

As we are leading up to those leadership races that we discussed earlier, what are you going to be keeping an eye on?

Richert: How's education?

First and foremost, because we will have a change in house ad.

It'll be interesting to see where leadership goes.

Do they go with a more moderate, chair?

Kind of like they had with Julie Yamamoto before she was voted out in the primary.

Do they go for a more conservative chair?

That's a committee that's going to be very interesting to watch for a lot of these issues that we've been talking about.

Davlin: All right.

You can read all of Kevin's excellent reporting at Idaho Ed News Talk.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for watching.

You can find all of our supplemental coverage at Idaho reports.org.

And we'll be back 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.