Dick Vinson began logging at 16, when he was a high school junior in Polson, Montana. Now 75, he’s trying to start up a sawmill in Emmett, Idaho.
Much of the area where Boise Cascade used to operate is fenced off and boarded up.
Judging by a faded sign next to its front door, this building once housed administrative offices for Boise Cascade’s local mill and beam plant.
The new Emerald Forest Products mill is just getting started. Here, logs await a machine called a debarker.
Once cut, boards are stacked according to size.
Three generations of mill workers: Ray Flowers, his daughter Debbie Flowers, and his grandson Casey Heideman
Emmett, Idaho, where farmer Vaughn Jensen raises corn, wheat, alfalfa hay, clover seed and cattle
Stories about mill towns tend to go something like this: generations of families work at the local sawmill. Then, the mill shuts down, taking hundreds of jobs with it. Emmett, Idaho is one of those towns. Boise Cascade closed its mill here in 2001. But that’s not where this story ends. Instead, it picks up with a Montana entrepreneur and millions in stimulus funding.
Idaho’s public employee pension system gap continues to shrink.
As we reported yesterday, a Pew Center on the States Report compared each state’s pension system in 2010. Many states, including Idaho, took a big hit when the financial markets crashed in 2008, resulting in staggering investment losses.
Idaho is making a quicker comeback than many states thanks to something called “smoothing.” That basically means Idaho took its financial hit all at once, while many other states smoothed out those short term losses over a five year period.
So, some states will continue to feel investment losses from the 2008 economic crash while Idaho’s pension system is on the mend.
In 2010, Pew reports the gap between Idaho’s assets and its obligation to fund public employee pensions was $3 billion or 79 percent funded.
According to PERSI spokesperson Patrice Perow, Idaho’s gap is now at $1.88 billion or 85 percent funded.
As long as Idaho’s unemployment rate stays above 7 percent, businesses will be able to apply for training grants to replace retiring employees. Last month, Idaho’s unemployment rate was 7.8 percent.
Before this change, businesses were only eligible for the training money if they were expanding their current workforce or averting layoffs. Continue Reading →
Bryant Francis, a Boise Airport Deputy Director, is making Boise's case to airlines.
This spring, Boise business leaders found a target and zeroed in. The Boise Airport had recently been hit by a spate of cuts. Southwest had suspended local service to Seattle, Salt Lake and Reno, and that was only the latest round of flight reductions. Preserving and expanding air service would be its chief focus, a Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce committee decided.
Toward that goal, the Boise Airport this month applied for a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Small Community Air Service Development Program. The Boise Metro Chamber signed on to provide a match — $10,000 in cash and an additional $10,000 in promotional support. Continue Reading →
Idaho is faring better than many states when it comes to funding its public employee pension and retiree health care systems.
A Pew Center on the States study on the widening gap between states’ assets and their obligation to fund pension systems ranks Idaho in the “needs improvement” and “solid performer” categories. Most states — 32 of them — landed in the “serious concern” category.
Here’s Pew’s assessment of the situation across the country:
“In fiscal year 2010, the gap between states’ assets and their obligations for public sector retirement benefits was $1.38 trillion, up nearly 9 percent from fiscal year 2009. Of that figure, $757 billion was for pension promises, and $627 billion was for retiree health care. Continue Reading →
Mirroring the national jobless rate increase, Idaho’s unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point last month, ending a nine-month decline in the economic measure.
Idaho’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate ticked up to 7.8 percent in May, from 7.7 percent in April.
Idaho is among 18 states where the jobless rate went up in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Idaho Department of Labor reports hiring slowed in the service sector. That can have a big impact on the rate, since four of every five Idaho jobs fall into this category. Continue Reading →
Foreclosure activity rose last month in Idaho, but the housing market's overall trend is one of improvement.
Idaho saw a 9 percent uptick in foreclosure filings from April to May, according to housing data provider RealtyTrac. That mirrors the 9 percent rise in foreclosure activity seen nationally over the same period. RealtyTrac says foreclosure activity is picking up in the wake of the landmark, multi-billion dollar mortgage settlement reached earlier this year. Continue Reading →
The public-private research initiative sailed through the 2012 Legislature after Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter pitched it as a way to expand technology development in Idaho.
Lawmakers set aside $5 million for IGEM. The first three projects were announced this week:
$700,000 for Boise State University’s computer science program
$670,700 for Idaho State University’s medical and semiconductor industry applications
$640,200 for the University of Idaho’s cyber-security program
All three schools will use the money to further develop existing programs. In some cases that means hiring new faculty.
You can read more about IGEM here, and more about the universities plans here.
Kelly Barker, in the backyard of her Meridian home.
For months now, our “Jobless in Idaho” series has followed people here in Idaho as they search for work against hard odds. Kelly Barker, a single mom from Meridian, had been out of work for the better part of a year when we met her last winter. Since then, she’s made do with a combination of temp work, food stamps and unemployment benefits. In April, those benefits were running out.
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