Among the requests approved by the council was $500,000 in funding to upgrade Twin Falls’ municipal water system. That upgrade is necessary to support the area’s new Chobani Yogurt facility.
A second $500,000 allocation will partially cover the cost of improving the town of Fairfield’s water system. Continue Reading →
Mike Ferguson is the Director of the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy.
The Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy released a report last week questioning the constitutionality of Idaho’s education funding system. Director of the center and former longtime chief state economist Mike Ferguson authored the report. Two of the largest stakeholders involved, the Idaho Department of Education and the Idaho Education Association have yet to weigh in beyond an initial reaction statement.Â
We recently sat down with Ferguson to talk about the report, his findings and where he thinks the state should go from here.Â
Q: Why did you decide to work on this report?
A: My intent going in was to look at the changes that had occurred in education funding since the great recession. In particular, I was aware that there had been a pretty big increase in the use of supplemental override levies. I also was aware that in 2006, property tax funding was swapped for sales tax funding. That’s not a problem in and of itself, but what it did was leave only unequalized levies for doing these supplementals. Continue Reading →
The state's Department of Labor administers the Idaho Workforce Development Training Fund.
More Idaho workers would be eligible for subsidized worker training under a proposal that will go before the state’s Workforce Development Council next month.
The council will decide whether to allow employers to tap into the state’s Workforce Development Training Fund to train workers replacing existing employees. Currently, the fund can only be used if businesses are expanding or averting a layoff.
“We have $16 million in the training fund right now,” says Department of Labor Assistant Deputy Director Dwight Johnson. That’s a larger amount than the fund has held in more robust economic times. “Given that balance, we want to be more aggressive in using that fund to train Idahoans to fill vacancies with businesses,” Johnson says.
The fund reimburses employers for the actual costs of training workers. Johnson believes employers in the high tech, health care, advanced manufacturing and energy industries would be most likely to take advantage of the funding, if the proposal is approved. The expanded eligibility would remain in effect as long as Idaho’s unemployment rate remains at or above 7 percent.
The Department of Labor’s press release about the upcoming decision is available here.
Moxie Java's first store opened in 1988. The Deans purchased the company in 2001.
The most recent trade mission to China organized by the state Department of Commerce and headlined by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is underway this week.
Computer and electronic products make up the lion’s share of Idaho’s exports to China, but that sector isn’t represented in the lineup of 15 Idaho companies working to explore and strengthen trade ties.
Instead, the companies on this trip represent a range of industries and business objectives, and run the gamut from familiar Idaho companies like Boise Cascade and Melaleuca to Intermountain Auto Recycling, a small after-market auto body parts distributor based in Rigby, Idaho. Continue Reading →
Southern Idaho ski areas are wrapping up their seasons. Bogus Basin and Sun Valley have closed their lifts. Brundage has one more weekend, possibly more, if the snow holds. This ski season has been a trying year for them.
Bogus Basin and Brundage Mountain had a late start to their ski seasons. Bogus opened January 19th, the latest opening day ever. That means it missed the crucial Thanksgiving and winter holidays when attendance is highest. Continue Reading →
The council has $1.1 million available for one-year grants. The money is from the federal Workforce Investment Act, and it must be matched by participating schools — either through cash or in-kind contributions like staff or facility use.
Kay Vaughn is a senior planner at the Idaho Department of Labor. She says this program is aimed at helping kids stay in school who are most at risk of falling through the cracks. “We don’t want them to fall out,” Vaughn says. “It’s all a matter of giving them a vision and some hope.”
Vaughn says businesses or organizations who want to get involved will help teach students practical skills like how to write a resume and how to interview for a job. There will also be a possibility of job shadowing.
The department has offered this same program for the last couple of years. Vaughn says during the 2009-2010 school year about 300 Idaho high school students participated.
You can find more information about the program here.
Study finds Idaho education funding has significantly decreased since 2000.
A report released today by the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy questions whether the state is meeting its constitutional duty to “maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.”
The report is authored by the center’s director Mike Ferguson, who was also Idaho’s chief economist for 25 years.
“One of the things I wanted to draw attention to is that unlike most state programs, public school funding is enshrined in the state constitution, it is basically different,” Ferguson says.
Ferguson’s report examines Idaho’s public school funding system from 1980 through 2013 (it includes the latest education budget for fiscal year 2013 which was signed into law recently.)
A new 55-page report from The Pew Center on the States shows most states don’t really know if business tax incentives are boosting job growth.
In case you don’t have time to read the full report, here’s what you should know: 26 states, including Idaho, don’t really know if the millions (in some cases billions) of dollars spent each year on tax incentives actually boost economic growth.
Pew Center on the States
26 states, including Idaho, are not meeting any of Pew's criteria for scope or quality of evaluation.
To see RealtyTrac's March foreclosure data, click on the map above.
The number of foreclosures in Idaho has remained relatively stable since October of last year, according to data from RealtyTrac, out today. Foreclosure filings made a slight .62 percent dip in the first quarter of 2012.
Compared to the first quarter of last year, filings have come down dramatically, falling by about 60 percent. Nationally, the number of foreclosure filings has dropped by a much less substantial 16 percent over the same period. Continue Reading →
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