Builders, architects and local officials from across the state urged strongly against it – as did the state association of fire chiefs – but a House committee this afternoon passed legislation to forbid local communities from adopting any building code provisions that are more up-to-date or more stringent than those adopted by a state board....
Senate Republicans have killed an Idaho Democrat's bill that would have allowed women to receive up to a 12-month supply of prescribed birth control. Currently, most Idaho insurance providers currently have a one-month or three-month limit. Democratic Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb...
The Senate has voted 25-10 in favor of SB 1279, the governor’s Opportunity Scholarship bill, which allows up to 20 percent of scholarships to go to “adult completers” returning to college to finish their degrees. “At the end of the day, if we’re going to…
The House has killed legislation from Idaho counties to allow an increase in a cap on property tax levies for county justice related services, from sheriff’s patrols to jail operations, from twenty hundredths of a percent of taxable market value, or .002, to twenty-five hundredths…
Gov. Butch Otter’s dual-waiver “Idaho Health Care Plan” has been pulled off the House floor and sent back to committee, after House Health & Welfare Chairman Fred Wood, R-Burley, said, “At this point in time the voters aren’t there to pass the bill.” House Minority...
Idaho officials pitched the state's plan for health care to federal officials, making a case to allow insurers to sell plans that don't comply with the Affordable Care Act. The Idaho Statesman reports Republican Gov. Butch Otter and Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron met with top federal health care officials last weekend...
Instead of the $5 million increase in Idaho’s Opportunity Scholarship fund that Gov. Butch Otter’s been backing – which would boost the fund to $15 million a year – legislative budget writers today approved a $3.5 million increase. “The group settled on $3.5 million,” said…
The budget for Idaho’s four-year colleges and universities for next year was set by JFAC this morning with a 3 percent increase in state general funds for next year, higher than Gov. Butch Otter’s proposal for a 2.3 percent increase; the vote was unanimous, 20-0.…
Budgets approved by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee so far this morning for the departments of Lands, Water Resources and Parks & Recreation have mostly closely tracked Gov. Butch Otter’s recommendations. At the Idaho Department of Water Resources, Sen. Steve Bair, R-Blackfoot, proposed an additional position…
JFAC has voted unanimously this morning to transfer $20 million from the current year’s budget to the fire fund in the state Department of Lands budget, with an emergency clause. The state currently has $8.6 million in bills pending from the 2017 fire season. Rep.…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
