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: With the tax credit for private education costs now signed into law and the future of the federal Department of Education up in the air, where does Idaho go next when it comes to public school policy?

I'm Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports this week, Chris Cargill of Mountain State's Policy Center and Senator Janie Ward-Engelking joined me to discuss their education policy priorities for the rest of the session.

Then Secretary of State Phil McGrane shares his goals for campaign finance legislation.

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

The Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss its lawsuit over Idaho's near-total abortion ban.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2022, shortly after the overturn of Roe v Wade.

At the time, the DOJ argued that Idaho's law conflicted with the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires hospitals that receive funding through Medicare, provides stabilizing treatments for patients in emergency rooms and sometimes physicians argued that care may include abortions if the patient's health is in danger, but not her life.

The state argues that Idaho's law protects both the fetus and the mother.

This week's dismissal doesn't mean the legal fights are over.

Kelcie Mosely-Morris of State's newsroom, reported that Saint Luke's has filed a similar lawsuit.

Correctly anticipating that the Trump administration would drop the original challenge.

You can read more from Kelcie at NewsFromTheStates.com On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill that would make the firing squad the primary form of execution for those on death row.

The proposal comes after last year's failed execution of Thomas Creech.

Brian Lenney: The death is instantaneous.

And in this case, I think it's an act of mercy.

It's an act of mercy.

Death by firing squad.

So I would encourage everybody's yes vote on this, Mr. President.

Dan Foreman: The state of Idaho is on the verge of making a big mistake.

A very big mistake.

And the optics of that mistake, I think, will unfortunately become readily apparent in time.

Projecting a piece of metal at 3,200ft per second, give or take, through the human body, is anything but humane.

I can say that because I've seen it.

I wished I haven't seen it.

Davlin: The bill passed 28 to 7 and now heads to the governor's desk.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed the biggest income tax reduction in state history in a 27 to 8 vote.

Among other changes, the bill would reduce income tax rates from 5.695% to 5.3% to the tune of $253 million.

Kevin Cook: Is this how our federal government started down the path of a $36 trillion deficit?

Because the revenue became less priority?

James Ruchti: It's not that we don't have the money to take care of our state's needs, it's that we're not willing to forego a tax cut, another tax cut bill to pay these bills.

And we could do a tax cut.

I'm not against doing a tax cut, but this goes way deeper than than it should.

Phil Hart: I'm operating from the standpoint that we're going to continue to have prosperity, as we've had for the last few years.

And that, we're ripe for a tax cut.

Davlin: Governor Brad Little signed the bill on Thursday.

Also Thursday, the House passed the latest Medicaid work requirement bill on a party line vote.

The bill requires the state to seek a waiver from the federal government to require able-bodied adults to work or volunteer for at least 20 hours a week in order to receive Medicaid.

The bill now heads to the Senate.

Last week, Governor Brad Little signed the highly anticipated and much debated bill that provides tax credits to families for private education costs.

The debate over House Bill 93 dominated the conversation over education policy until this point in the session, and understandably so.

But now that it's signed into law, we wanted to know what's next in education policy priorities.

Our friends at Idaho Education News have a fantastic rundown of education bills making their way through the legislature right now, including proposals on deregulating daycare and new approaches to the whammy medical school partnership.

You can find their excellent reporting online at Idaho Ed Newstalk.

Also Thursday, I spoke to Chris Cargill, president of Mountain State's Policy Center and a big proponent of that tax credit bill, about what education proposals he would like to see next.

Chris, thank you so much for joining us today.

Now that the tax credit bill for private education costs has passed, what is on your education priority list?

Chris Cargill: Yeah, there's a lot on the list.

And we were just talking before about how we don't know exactly when the legislative session is going to end.

So we could probably keep adding to this list if we wanted to.

But I think the most important part is bringing some transparency to public school budgets.

We did a poll last year, late last year, at the end of last year, asking voters if they would support what we call a public school transparency Act.

And and what we mean by that is the ability for citizens to be able to go and see how their school districts are spending money, where the money is coming from, how much resources do they have, what their teacher to student ratios are, what the administrator to student ratios are.

That way everyone has a good idea based on this document what their school districts are facing and if they have enough money, or perhaps maybe they don't have enough money.

If you've ever tried to read a school district budget, it's like trying to read a different language.

It is very, very difficult.

In our analysis, we went through all of the school district budgets throughout the state.

There are about 5 or 6 different formats that districts use.

Some of them are, you know, maybe 20 or 30 pages long.

Some of them are 500 pages long.

So we would really like to see a, a bill passed that requires all school districts on page one of the budget to have the same information.

And then that way, if you're as a citizen trying to decide whether you want to perhaps buy a house in in Nampa or Coeur d’Alene or, or Idaho Falls, you can go look at that and say, okay, I can compare and contrast what my district has, what this district has, how much money is getting to the classroom, how many teachers are in that district, and so on.

And we really think it's just a really good, transparent way to bring about, some confidence in the public school system.

Davlin: And just to clarify, this is all public information.

It's just a matter of collating it in the same place in the same format.

It short of legislation to do this very thing.

Mountain States Policy Institute has put together a transparent schools project.

Cargill: Yeah, exactly.

And what we tried to do is say, look, you know, until the legislature does this, we'll just produce it on our own.

We'd like to see all the school districts do it.

And some have said that they'd be very willing to do it.

As you mentioned, they already have the information.

It's all there.

It's just a matter of knowing where to look.

And if you're a busy mom or dad, you don't necessarily know where to look.

But the school districts know where to look.

They have the information.

So it would be really easy for a school district to do.

But in lieu of that, happening, what we've done is we put together the, a study that we're going to be releasing, here in the next week or so.

That will show what it could look like.

Now, the legislature may not pass a bill that makes it look like a carbon copy, but we're hopeful that this gives citizens and legislators an idea of what we're talking about when we say, create a transparency index.

And Idaho, by the way, would be the first state in the country to do this.

Again, every state is different.

Every state is going to do public school transparency different.

But in terms of having one standardized form on the front of every budget throughout the state, Idaho would be the first.

Davlin: And we just for transparency, we did get an advanced copy of the report that you are putting out, and I, I love data.

I love spreadsheets and.

Cargill: A lot of spreadsheets in that.

Davlin: Lots of spreadsheets.

I love me some Excel.

You know, at the same time, data doesn't always tell the full story, especially with some of these districts that are wildly different from even their neighboring districts.

Some of them are very small and rural and and some of them are large and might have dozens of elementary schools.

And so we're looking at things like reading proficiency scores or chronic absenteeism.

It does the data really tell the full story as to why some of those scores, where there are districts with, you know, a high percentage of, English as a second language learners or high or different socioeconomic, issues than a neighboring district, is that data by itself enough?

Cargill: You know, it's a great question, and I don't know the answer to that.

Obviously, we would like to see more data, as much data as possible, to be out in the public.

And then the public is in charge of being educated and, and making their own determination in terms of, of what their school district has or, or how they're spending those funds.

I think there are some numbers in here that surprised us as well.

I mean, you mentioned some of the smaller school districts.

Look, smaller school districts still have to have, bus drivers and and cafeteria workers and all those different folks who work outside of the classroom.

And smaller school districts may have more resources per student than a larger school district would have.

Does that necessarily mean they're a rich school district?

No, I mean that that's not what that is saying.

I think the most interesting data point, Melissa, that was in the report that we put together is, a the, teacher to student ratios, the student to administrator ratios, and then the percentage of district employees who are teachers.

Those are the three numbers that I think caught me by surprise.

In most school districts in our state, fewer than half of the total FTEs in the district, are teachers.

Davlin: Full time employees.

Cargill: Exactly.

Exactly.

And I think a lot of people would be surprised by that.

But again, that goes back to some of the requirements that we put on school districts to provide transportation and lunch and do all these things outside of the classroom.

So to your point, I think there's there's much more information that could be available.

We put together a study that's about 130 pages long.

Perhaps next year we'll do 200 pages.

Davlin: You brought up regulations, and that's such a big topic both in Idaho and the federal level, especially as President Trump is talking about dismantling the Department of Education.

Of course, some of those requirements that you brought up come from the federal level.

Cargill: Yep.

Davlin: There are a lot of families that do depend on things like school, lunch and transportation.

So at what point who decides this regulation that we transport children to school and feed them lunch is too onerous, or that we provide services for children with disabilities?

Versus, you know what?

This is costing a lot of money and maybe only benefiting a small percentage of students who makes that call?

Cargill: Yeah, I think the community makes the call.

I think the state lawmakers make that call.

And, look, I don't think anyone is suggesting that we stop providing those things.

I think in terms of the discussion that we're having about the federal role in education, it's really a matter of whether the federal government can do it better the states could do it better.

And what we've recommended is, look, yeah, get rid of the federal Department of Education and then use that money to block grant it back to the states.

And then the states will still have the funds coming in, but they don't have to worry about the overhead of the federal Department of Education.

And then our local state officials, our superintendent of Public Instruction, our folks who work in the state Department of Education, they can decide how those moneys are filtered down to the public school districts.

So I think there's misconception out there that says that if we get rid of the Department of Education at the federal level, that somehow all of that funding is going to disappear.

What we would say is that let's get rid of the bureaucracy and get that funding going directly to the states.

Davlin: Is there a role for bureaucracy to make sure that students with disabilities don't fall between the cracks, and that even the most rural of school districts are serving the needs of those students?

Cargill: Absolutely.

I would say absolutely.

I mean, look what we favor at Mount States Policy Center is a safety net.

I mean, the safety net has to be there no matter what program that we're talking about.

And look, I'm the father of a special needs child, so this is very near and dear to my heart.

And when we were talking about the tax credit, that's just been passed and other, expansions of education choice.

Part of the reason we talk about those things is specifically to help those kids.

Because, look, if you're just the average kid, 90%, 95% of Idahoans like their public school, they want to keep their public school.

They like Mr. Smith or Mr. Johnson, or maybe they graduated from that school and they they think it's doing a great job.

And that's terrific.

What we're talking about and what you've hit on, Melissa, is, is that remaining 5 to 10% who don't necessarily fit into the public school box.

And so to the extent that we have programs to cover those students, we think that those are critical components of a basically a functioning society.

Davlin: Chris Cargill, president of the Mountain States Policy Center, thanks so much for joining us.

Cargill: My pleasure.

Davlin: Also Thursday, I spoke to Senator Janie Ward-Engelking, a member of the Senate Education Committee and Joint Finance Appropriations Committee, about her education goals.

For the rest of the session.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us today.

Now that House Bill 93 has passed, what are your education priorities for the rest of the legislative session?

Janie Ward-Engelking: Well, thank you for having me.

And we've got quite a few education priorities.

First of all, we're working on the funding formula.

We know that that funding formula is antiquated.

It hasn't been updated in years, and so but it's complicated and it's very complex.

So we're looking at taking a few bites at a time.

And so the first one is to look at sending out some of the money based on students needs.

So students that have special needs students might need more resources.

Or if it's, English language learner might need some more resources.

So we're looking at that weighting some, weighting the students and sending out some of the money.

Not all of it, but some of it.

That's kind of a first step.

Davlin: And for people who aren't familiar, the funding formula when we're talking about education is how much money the state sends to school districts.

And it's right now, based on average daily attendance as opposed to enrollment or student needs.

Ward-Engelking: Right.

And, during the pandemic, we went to enrollment.

And that was, you know, I think that it reflects what schools need more accurately, because if a student's absent, the costs don't go down.

You still have the teacher, the building, you know, has to be heated.

Lights are on, busses run.

So the costs don't go down because somebody's absent.

But we used to have about a 98% attendance rate before Covid or before the pandemic.

And since then, we're we're running in the high 80s, like 89% or 92%.

So we have the same number of students, but we're sending out less money to school districts because of the average daily Attendance.

Davlin: And we know that chronic absenteeism, you know, based on how many students, or sorry, how many days a student misses in a school year, that can also vary district by district.

Do we know the causes why that's going down right now?

Ward-Engelking: You know, I think, just parents and students got used to if you're sick, you stay home.

And, you know, sometimes if you have a little sniffle, you go to school.

Or we used to.

And now it's like, oh we need to stay home.

And I think it's just more of a response to how people dealt with colds and stuff during the pandemic and how they, how they do it now.

Davlin: Sure.

You also have a bill concerning public schools potentially transferring or sorry, transforming to charter schools.

Ward-Engelking: Right.

I would I think it's time to level the playing field for traditional public schools and public charter schools.

And right now, traditional public schools, don't have the same flexibility that, charter schools do.

So if we really want to move the needle, then let's kind of level that playing field.

Let's, allow them to have more flexibility with their curriculum and with the reporting that they provide the state and also, just the idea that we can be innovative and creative in the public schools, too.

We’d originally thought, you know, charter schools would be the incubators, and then we would bring those ideas back to the public schools.

But in reality, what has happened is we've just had more and more charter schools.

And so I think it's time to let public traditional schools be innovative.

Davlin: Another unknown is what's going to happen with the Department of Education in D.C. on that federal level.

What concerns you about these conversations about dismantling the Department of Education?

Ward-Engelking: Well, we always we haven't always had a Department of Education.

It was created by the Congress so it would take a vote by senators, I think 60 to say we're we're going to dismantle it or just, you know, do away with it.

However, I think President Trump will probably try to do it without that and we'll see what happens.

But I think there are some areas we'd be fine.

I think the I.D.E.A, which is the Idaho, it's the Individual Disabilities Education Act.

And it's the money that we get for special education or for any child with a disability.

And some of that intervention starts very early.

And and a lot of times it's for our preemies, you know, our babies that are born premature or if they have some kind of disability, we jump right in.

That program allows for that.

I think we could do that at the state level with with like, block grants.

I'm Davlin: Using federal money potentially.

Ward-Engelking: Yes, I think it I think the state could take that over and just get the money from the federal government in, in a grant form, and we could do that.

There are some areas I'm concerned about.

I'm concerned about title one, which that's money that goes to our lower poverty areas.

It's for free and reduced lunch.

It's to help children that might be experiencing homelessness and things like that.

So that, I don't know how that if those funds would be safe.

And I'm very worried about our loans for our students going on to college.

Federal Pell grants, federal loans.

That's, you know, that's a big program.

It's still it's basically done FAFSA does it.

And it's by we have everybody's income tax.

We look at that.

It's done on a need basis.

I don't know if we have the bandwidth or the capability to do that at the state level.

Davlin: Okay.

Sen. Jani Ward-Engelking, Thanks so much for joining us.

Ward-Engelking: Thank you so much.

Davlin: You can see my full conversation with Senator Ward-Engelking online at youtube.com/IdahoReports Last month, Secretary of State Phil McGrane joined with House leadership to unveil election integrity and transparency bills.

On Thursday, I sat down with him to discuss what prompted that legislation.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane, thank you so much for joining us.

Big slate of election changes on the docket this year.

Some of those bills are going to be introduced, but what are you hoping to accomplish?

Phil McGrane: You know, one of the biggest things is we saw a huge influx of money during this last election cycle.

So just on the legislative races alone, we saw over $17 million spent in legislative races.

Of that 17 million.

Only 7 million came from the candidates.

So there's all those attack ads that people see or the mailers they get.

These are from independent expenditures.

And really, right after the primary election.

And Speaker Moyle had a very intense primary election.

There was just an outcry that our campaign finance laws weren't doing what they needed to do in this modern age of campaigning.

And so part of the bills are us really like reevaluating where we've been with our sunshine laws and campaign finance and saying like, okay, how do we step up our game to really kind of bring Idaho into this century in terms of what politics actually looks like.

Davlin: And for people who aren't familiar, the way contributions directly to candidates are handled is very different than how independent expenditures are handled.

And that's just money that people can spend on those mailers like you mentioned.

McGrane: Yeah, I think that most people, when they think of money in politics, they think of a donation of $5 to a candidate or whatever the amount is.

Or they also think of like the big donors writing much bigger checks to them.

There are direct donations to candidates.

Candidates have limits.

So for a legislative race, it's a limit of $1,000.

And that's part of the conversation here.

But so part of the question is like, where does that all of the other money come from and where does it go to?

It goes to these political action committees.

So we have all sorts of different groups.

You know, in our office we like to joke.

They're all like freedom, liberty, whatever the cause may be.

And you have these groups and they do what are called independent expenditures.

And the reason they're called that is because they're not allowed to work with the candidates.

Candidates do their ads.

And we all see the billboards, the yard signs, that kind of stuff.

Well, often when you see those mailers, especially the ones that have the like our most hitting, they're actually not coming from the candidate.

They're coming from an outside group who is spending money trying to influence the race either for or against a candidate.

And that's where we've seen really the biggest influx of money.

Davlin: See it outside of the campaign and increasingly outside of the state.

McGrane: Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest things that we saw in this cycle and where people really felt the pressure is there's a few issues in the state that have been going on where tons of money was coming, particularly from the DC area.

Unfortunately, what we'd like to talk about is Idaho is a low dollar state.

You go to many other bigger states, they spend millions of dollars.

Whereas in Idaho, a typical legislative race is probably usually around 20 to $30,000.

And now all of a sudden we're seeing, you know, $100,000 spent against a candidate to try and influence an outcome.

That's really changing the landscape, and the candidates are struggling to deal with it.

If you talk to any of the legislators who were in these intense races, they'll tell you they felt it.

And they, you know, it wasn't what they had experienced in the past.

And so that's where people are really trying to see what we can do.

Most notably, there's a lot of talk about the Young Americans for Liberty.

But there's also the there are some other out-of-state groups that spent a ton.

The highest spender in PAC money was the Young Americans for Liberty, which says a lot about just kind of what's happening.

So some of our biggest spenders were from out of state.

Really kind of drowning out some of the conversation that's happening within Idaho.

Davlin: So what would these bills do to address those concerns?

McGrane: One of the biggest things is so this is our sunshine.

These are our current laws.

They were a citizens initiative in the 1970s.

And from my perspective, enforcing them, they read like a citizens initiative from the 1970s.

So it's time for us to update them.

One of the things we saw is these groups, especially the national groups exploiting some of our rules in the timing.

Sometimes when they do those attack ads, they could wait 30 days till they had to report it.

At one point, based on some complaints.

We were talking to an attorney who represents one of the groups, and she knew our laws inside and out.

And she's like, we will report exactly when we have to report.

And from my calculation, I think we have three more hours.

They were they were taking advantage of the rules to have the impact.

And so part of it is just saying we need to know faster, sooner and know more.

So 48 hour reporting for any independent expenditure over $1,000.

More frequent reporting for candidates, especially in the off years.

So some of that just to add more light to the system.

To say we want to know who's behind it.

You know, when you get the mailer.

This is my vision as secretary of state.

You should be able to look paid for by go to our website, search exactly what that says and be able to see who where is this money coming from?

Is this from local constituents?

Is this from out of state?

And so part of this legislation does that.

Davlin: Because that really does make a difference to for a voter getting a mailer on whether it's school choice or grocery tax or whatever, if that's coming from somebody in-state, it really might have a different weight than something coming from D.C.. McGrane: Well, and I think the perception cause these are well done.

I was talking to the pro tem, Kelly Anthon, he's from Declo, Idaho.

In Declo he's like he wants people to know this is coming from Arlington, Virginia, because people in Declo are not that concerned about what Arlington thinks.

But they do want to know what's going on among their fellow Idahoans.

And so us being able to make that easy is a key part of adding sunshine to the process.

Davlin: You've been working with House leadership and Senate leadership on this.

How much of these ideas were coming from you and how much from the lawmakers?

McGrane: So one of the biggest things that's really come from us, and we put a lot of work is restructuring.

Trying to make it simpler.

Part of why we have a hard time getting compliance and enforcement is these laws are currently are very messy.

So there's if you look at the bill, it's a 40 page bill because we really are overhauling the the base of the system to say like there should be rules for candidates.

There should be rules for PACs.

There should be rules for these independent expenditures.

So it can be hard sometimes to read this bill compared to others.

And we actually have like a five page guide on how to navigate it.

And then we go in and we make substantive changes within there.

So looking at the campaign finance limits, I know there's a lot of conversation about that.

And there will continue to be because our limits were set in 1995 and they've never been adjusted.

It's probably time with inflation and other things to raise them.

But I will also say we want to raise them a little bit.

This is my opinion.

We don't want to blow them up.

And, you know, I don't have many constituents telling me, like, I wish there was more money in politics.

And so that's one of the conversations.

The other part is just reworking some of the basic rules to update them, because there were things that the both the drafters of the initiative hadn't thought of, but even the legislature since that we're saying, like, oh, this is becoming more professionalized.

We need to set expectations and also not lose sight of like the small school districts and stuff, where we don't want it to be onerous at the same time.

Davlin: Right.

Because we talk about this in terms of legislative races and statewide races.

But there are also sunshine requirements and for good reason for local races as well.

McGrane: Yeah, I think people when looking at our campaign finance website and especially the political junkies who know it, we're actually managing 3500 finance accounts all simultaneously.

It's not a small operation.

And it's because we're doing everything from we got the city council elections coming up this November to the governor's race and some of the really big things.

And so hopefully we can make it easier for the public to navigate, but also easier for the candidates.

Because we are kind of the referee in the political process.

And we want to make sure that people know the rules.

And when we see balls and strikes, that when we see a strike like we can actually call it.

Davlin: We have so much more online at IdahoReports.org Thanks so much 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.