Rep. Janice McGeachin (R-Idaho Falls) is said to be working on legislation to reverse a number of Medicaid service cuts.
Draft legislation to reverse some of the Medicaid service cuts approved in recent years has been introduced in a House committee. That’s according to the Idaho Council on Developmental Disabilities. Marilyn Sword, the group’s executive director, says Rep. Janice McGeachin (R-Idaho Falls) has been working on the proposal.
Rep. McGeachin, who chairs the House Health and Welfare Committee, could not be reached for comment.
Less than two weeks ago, however, she urged the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee to reverse specific cuts. One was the cut that forces Idaho Medicaid recipients with dual diagnoses to choose between skill training to manage a mental illness and skill training to manage developmental disabilities. Another was the cut that eliminated preventative and restorative dental services for adults with disabilities. Continue Reading →
Crescent Silver Mine in Idaho's panhandle. The region is known as the "silver belt".
A Canadian mining company with operations in northern Idaho this week announced plans to explore and further develop the Crescent Silver Mine. The Crescent mine is located near Coeur d’Alene between the well-known Bunker Hill and Sunshine mines.
According to United Silver Corp.’s press release, the four-year, $23 million exploration project could yield a “significant silver resource”. United Silver says the mine has already produced about 25 million ounces of silver in the past, but it hasn’t been aggressively explored.
“Very significant surface drilling and underground exploration in the form of a spiral ramp and drifting within the known mineralization closest to surface has already been completed. The objective of the current Plan is to restart, aggressively, this partially-completed exploration/development work which began in 2007. Highly-encouraging results from this earlier work form the basis for this aggressive exploration/development plan, which has the goal of unlocking what management believes is a very high potential for the delineation of a significant silver resource.” – United Silver Corp.
After a foreclosure, this California home stood vacant.
The national foreclosure system appears to favor borrowers whose home loans total $1 million or more. That’s according to a new analysis for The Wall Street Journal.
“Nationally, borrowers with loans of at least $1 million were in default for an average 792 days last year before banks repossessed their homes, according to an analysis by data provider Lender Processing Services. For loans under $250,000, the wait stood at an average 611 days—a difference of about six months.” — The Wall Street Journal
A handful of new tax and spending bills are making their way through the Legislature this week. Here’s an update of what’s happening and what we’re watching.
Tax Cuts
A bill to reduce the income and corporate tax rates of Idaho’s top earners got an initial nod of approval from the House tax committee. The Spokesman Review blog ‘Eye On Boise’ reports HB 563 passed by a 13-4 vote. Continue Reading →
President Obama’s budget proposal, released earlier this month, outlines cuts to ag subsidies. That’s a potential hot button issue for rural and agricultural states, including Idaho. The Los Angeles Timessummarized those cuts this way:
The White House wants to cap direct payments to farmers — which flow mainly to producers of corn, soybeans, cotton and other core commodities, regardless of market prices — at $30,000 per farm. It also wants to limit who is eligible to receive those subsidies. Continue Reading →
Court Hanson, a college and career counselor at Boise High School, says he's worried about the lack of job opportunities for students.
Idaho had one of the highest teen unemployment rates in the nation last year. Nearly 30 percent of 16- to 19-year-old Idahoans were unemployed, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This week, StateImpact is exploring that rate. After all, unemployed teens aren’t just college-bound high school students who are finding it harder to line up summer lifeguarding jobs. Teenagers, in many cases, need to work. Continue Reading →
In about 30 minutes, outdoor winter recreators can escape the snow-less city of Boise and find themselves in a winter wonderland. It’s the Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area. Downhill ski slopes along with Nordic and snowshoe trails are perched on the far southern end of Boise County, just across the Ada County line. It’s this seasonal ski hill that is Boise County’s top private employer.
Justin Marty / Flickr
Bogus Basin Ski Area, outside Boise, Idaho
Bogus Basin employs on average 200 to 300 people each year. That’s according to data from the Idaho Department of Labor. To get the data, the department calculated the average number of employees between October 2010 and September 2011. So, it’s not always an accurate measure of what’s really happening.
Each week we take a look back at the five stories getting the most clicks, comments and shares. In case you missed anything, our readers think these are the five essential stories from the week.
A fifth of working households in Idaho spend more than half of their income on housing costs, according to a new study from the Center for Housing Policy. That’s slightly better than the national proportion of working households that have a “severe housing cost burden.” That number stands at 23.6 percent.
According to the study, the percent of working households in Idaho with a severe housing cost burden went up slightly from 2008 to 2010, mirroring national trends. Nationally, the drop in housing prices was outpaced by the drop in income over that period. Working households that rent are somewhat more likely than those that own to have severe housing costs, the report says.
Mitt Romney campaigning in Denver, CO earlier this month.
For the second time this month Idaho Republicans Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and Senator Jim Risch are stumping for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Romney detailed a new tax plan earlier this week, the same day President Barack Obama unveiled his. Now, Otter and Risch are hosting a press conference call this afternoon to tout Romney’s plan.
Romney has previously favored maintaining current individual income tax rates and lowering the top corporate tax rate ten percent. His website notes he’d like to “pursue a conservative overhaul of the tax system of the long term.”
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