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.

>>Governor Brad Little's actions during the pandemic prompted some of the most contentious debates during the legislative session this year.

This week, he joins us to give us his take I'm Melissa davlin Idaho reports starts now.

Hello, and welcome to Idaho reports.

This week, we're joined by Governor Brad Little, thank you so much for joining us.

I know you've had a lot on your plate lately.

I wanted to ask you first about the lieutenant governor's executive order while you were out of town after that executive order, are have you changed any plans to travel out of the state in the future?

>>No, but it may become a factor but we you know, there's always things you look at.

You know, I I remember a time when I was lieutenant governor, when there was a pretty big deal that well, I'll be straight up about it.

It was an execution.

And Governor Otter, and I was thankful for it, he came back.

So you know, you whether, you know as as the chief executive, if there's things that are really critical, you know, emergencies or something, I think it's necessarily stay in the state.

>>It seems it seemed for a very long time that your office and the lieutenant governor's office have not been on the same page have not been communicating.

Looking forward.

How do you ensure that this dysfunction and lack of communication doesn't affect the governing of the state of Idaho?

>>I don't know that I communicating because my staff either talks to her staff or to the Lieutenant Governor on a on a frequent basis if you know, weekly or bi weekly.

This obviously makes it a little more problematic.

But you know, it's we think for the continuity of government, it's important that that communications takes place >>Your your staffs communicate, but they also didn't realize that the lieutenant governor was out of town while you were also leaving town and there was a brief period while the Senate President Pro Tem was governor, does there need to be a tightening up of that communication to make sure that everyone knows where everyone else is for that chain of command?

>>Well that's the standard protocol that happened when I was lieutenant governor that, you know, sometimes I'd get a long period of heads up, and sometimes I'd get a phone call in the morning, say, I'm headed to Oregon, you're in charge.

So that was a very brief notice.

But you know, the there's the notification and then if the if the, if the lieutenant governor or the Pro Tem or even the speaker is gone, I remember a time when everybody was gone and Secretary of State was, even though that isn't necessarily in the Constitution, but it was kind of recognized but there's there's a process there.

>>You know, I wanted to ask about the the language and the lieutenant governor's executive order the language in your executive order.

And also the the statement, you had a scathing statement, condemning what the lieutenant governor did in your absence, pointing out that it caused a lot of confusion.

And there were a lot of holes in in, you know, the public safety reasoning with this.

But you know, with those two executive orders, plus the indoctrination Task Force plus the statements, are you worried about the republican gubernatorial primary happening while on the clock?

>>Oh, that's just the way elections work.

I mean, whether it's the lieutenant g overnor versus a governor, whether it's another member happens, that happens all the time.

And people just need to be cognizant that they, they have their constitutional job to do and then they have the campaign.

It would be nice if they never mix, but they do all the time.

That's just part of our process.

>>You haven't officially announced that you are running for re election.

Would you like to right now?

>>No, we're we're, as I've I think of my quote is, don't be surprised.

>>I'll practice my shocked face.

>>Alright >>So yeah, I wanted to ask you about vaccines.

Idaho does have one of the worst vaccine rates for adults in the nation.

What's the state looking at doing about it?

>>Well, actually, when I was in Nashville last week, that was some of the conversations I had with you know, I tried to find states that were demographically like Idaho, and for the most part if their demographically like, I know there having a high high degree of of hesitancy and if there's, you know, who's got the best idea about getting more people vaccinated, and that's, you know, we're we're looking at any, any and all options to create an atmosphere where people choose to get vaccinated.

>>What are some of those options?

>>Well, you know, we looked at the lottery, that's never my favorite I've.

But that doesn't mean we're, we've ruled it out.

There's some other areas, one of the things that I'm concerned about is our firefighters.

That the fire that we have a high level of vaccination firefighters, so that, you know, as dry as summer is, is that we don't have an event where, you know, we have a COVID run through a fire camp, and endangers firefighters, the community.

That but, you know, we're, we're trying to make it more available in in the more remote areas.

Right now, we're trying to change our messaging, we want people to walk into a pharmacy.

But I think in what we see in some of the survey work we're doing is that people's confidence in what their doctor tells them, that people need to have a conversation with their doctor about do you think this is the right thing for me?

And that should really help hesitancy.

>>Do you believe realistically that enough, Idahoans will get the COVID vaccine for us to read reach that 70% goal?

>>It we could, because, you know, the the the two predominant the mRNA back vaccines, that, you know, the side effects from them are are de minimis.

And the risk return is incredible.

And people that are hesitant, as they know more people who got vaccinated and see their comfort level with people going out.

It, it may be a long slog, but we may get there, but it's but you know, it's it's dynamic.

It's a novel virus.

And we know that it's mutating, that's what viruses do is mutate.

And, and and the other thing that people that had COVID, either lab confirmed or they were pretty confident they had COVID.

We're going to get to a point in time to where if if the science is correct, which I believe it is, and that they are going to be subject to getting reinfected where they had the vaccine that we know there's areas of state where we have, you know, the statistics were compelling.

We had a high infection rate.

If there comes a point in time when there reinfection starts showing up, I think that'll help vaccine uptake.

>>Looking over the past 14 months and and Idaho's COVID response, you know, Idaho had a relatively great economic recovery, you know looking at other states, at the same time, we had a much higher death rate than some of our neighboring states that didn't open up as quickly.

When you think about that balance between opening up businesses and individual liberty not having a statewide mask mandate, but also this death rate.

Do you have any, any?

Would you have done anything differently?

>>Maybe I mean, if I knew if I knew more, I would have absolutely every so they're not a governor.

Healthcare person that wouldn't do things differently because what we learned, but you know, there's a lot of other states that had much bigger lockdowns and have a higher fatality rate than we did in Idaho.

You know, every one of those 2100 plus people as a and their families, and the health care workers that took care of him is something that none of us wanted to have happen.

But all in all, balancing everything out.

What I had to do is get people to, to choose, I was having a conversation yesterday, you know, you can have a mask mandate, but if people don't wear a mask properly, if they don't use the right kind of mask, you you've got to convince people that it's in their best interest to do the right thing.

And that's, and that's why I like the local government, local area making them you know, I can tell you that an edict from the President is different than an edict from the governor is different than an edictfrom a lower level.

It's a person that they know, closely that they're more inclined to be compliant with.

>>Do you worry that that put a lot of pressure on people on the front lines like teachers in the classroom or retail workers who were the ones who were enforcing these these mandates either in private businesses or in school?

>>Absolutely.

There's no question that that was an issue.

But I don't know what a better solution was.

And then and the best thing is if they had a had a rule or a, a mandate, and that they everybody knew what it was they didn't move in and out of it that that's just because, you know, the kids, there was there was other options.

But, you know, I was that's why we were one of the first states to allow teachers to get vaccinated.

Getting kids back in school was a huge priority for us.

>>I also wanted to ask you about unemployment.

Idaho, of course, opted out of the extra federal unemployment dollars a couple months ago, and we've had, you know, one of the lowest unemployment rates so far, you know, small businesses are saying they're having a hard time finding employees.

But that's a problem when there's low unemployment in non pandemic time.

So is this less a problem with the federal enhanced benefits and maybe more of a problem with wages or the low unemployment rate in the first place?

>>Well, there was an article yesterday or day before that talked about the people at the low end, there's a lot of those jobs that have increased 40% in a year's time, the starting pay has increased 40%.

Now that doesn't keep up with housing prices, but it it does fix a lot of other things.

And, in fact, we were the first state the only state to put a back to work bonus in last July, a year ago, in July, or last July.

We actually there was another program in January that we waived on and in fact, the the new basically, not asking to receive the federal program that doesn't take place until the middle of this month.

So but but the signal that it's going to go away, I hear from a lot of businesses that it's increased.

A lot of people call and say I'm interested, but then they wouldn't show up.

But they're showing up for appointments now.

But there's a, you know, we we want to get people back to work.

To me the biggest problem in Idaho is housing affordability.

Because my goal I want kids to stay here and this housing affordability and I I'm not sure what the answer is to that one.

I know it's a local government answer rather than a state answer, but I want to help local government solve that problem.

>>Let's talk about that a little bit, because it is not just a Boise problem.

>>No >>We have heard from Viewers all over the state that in Chalice people are having a hard time finding affordable housing in North Idaho.

So you say it is a local government problem to solve does this does the legislature or the executive branch have any role in making that easier for them to deal with?

>>Well, probably, I mean, what we do in land use planning what we do and in transportation.

It, they do, but you're right about that.

There, the percentage increase in rural Idaho is bigger than it is in Boise and even Coeur d'Alene.

That Rathdrum Athel Hayden, the appreciation there, everybody Coeur d'Alene made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but it was because of what class of city they're in those smaller communities have had even a even a larger increase.

And so, you know, it's going to take a little while to get back in balance theres, you know, the price of lumber is skyrocket.

There's a shortage of, but you know, we can help with getting people trained, we can help with getting people licensed.

We're trying to do all we can, our mills in Idaho are all running at 100% capacity to get try and get the price of lumber down.

>>We've got you've got the price of lumber, and then you have things with you.

You have issues with infrastructure, not just the roads, but also things like wastewater capacity in some of those smaller communities, the state have a role in helping with that sort of infrastructure.

>>Yes.

Absolutely.

And course it's there's a lot of federal money to help these cities.

I live in a city where my my, our city fathers and city councilman mayor's went out and fix the water system.

And our water rates and Emmett reflect that were the federal government's going to give money to the other cities that didn't do it.

I would like to have a system where people do the right thing at the right time.

And and you know, if the city does want to grow, that's great.

They can, you know, they can elect their county commissioners and their mayor and their cities, and they can do that.

I think most everybody agrees on my goal.

We want to have an opportunity for our kids to stay here.

And that's that's that it's it's a problem.

That's one of the reasons we did the first time home buyers savings account.

We l are Idaho taxes or if the fe eral government would do that wh re people people can save tax fr e to get that down payment fo their house.

But right now th price of a house is going up so fast.

it's it's a it's the mo t perplexing problem I be ieve we have in Idaho right no .

>>Related to that, of course, is property taxes that it's >>Well, I mean, have they have a discussion, listen to everybody that's impacted by it our the bill that we did, and I signed the bill reluctantly, as my signing statement, pointed out, nobody anticipated in, we're addressing a 25% increase.

Remember, that's last year over the year before, we get to start thinking about what is going to happen a year from now.

Because in some of these in, including the one we're sitting in right now, it might be a 35% increase in value.

When the assessor in Ada county and Bob's a friend of mine, he said he was surprised by the increase.

I was frankly surprised it was more with what affecting homeowners and renters alike.

What would you like to I know the people I talked to everyday people trying to buy see from the legislators interim committee on property taxes?

houses, but but they need to address the way the system works.

If the these taxpayers value doesn't change, and these go way up, they pay more taxes.

And if there's little bitty changes that works.

But given these radical changes, we need to continue to look through it.

Maybe a different lens, than we would just nobody anticipated a 20%, 30%, 40% appreciation and home values.

>>Well, let's talk about the state's ability to look ahead and plan for some of this growth too, because so, so much of what we've seen the state do over the past several years has been trying to address gaps in funding, whether it's transportation, whether it's education, or whatever, right now, we have an influx of a lot of retirees, especially in northern Idaho, moving in that affects the tax base, that's going to affect the bottom line for cities in the state.

Meanwhile, some young people are still moving out whether it's for job opportunities or other reasons.

When we're looking ahead, at the potential changing face of the tax base in Idaho, are we ready for what the state is going to look like in 10 years?

>>Probably not as perfectly as we'd like to, but nobody a year ago, go thought we'd be where we are today.

We you know where the for every 100 people working pre pandemic, we got 112 working today.

And that's we, frankly, blow all the other states out of the water.

So to say oh Brad knew that was going to happen, it'd be grossly incorrect.

I'm delighted it's happening.

But you got to remember, despite the fact that there's some young people moving out, and some retired people moving in, we're gonna get census data.

And we're still the second or third youngest state in the union.

Even given even given those demographics, and some of those retired people to move here, their kids come to visit, and they say, if I can afford a house, I want to move up here be next to mom and dad that are living in Idaho.

And they'll they'll go into the workforce >>If they can afford a house.

>>Yeah, if they can afford a house.

>>Yeah.

What's the next step with transportation?

You had a big win with transportation this year.

But again, there there's still a big deficit in in deferred maintenance.

What's next?

>>Of course I don't think that for maintenance.

You know, if you look at the dashboard, our payment is 94%, where it needs to be, which is way better number than it used to be.

And we've got a big bridge issue.

The problem is congestion.

And that's why I was delighted that after two years, the legislature adopted my revenue plan to where we can bond for these big congestion issues.

Because, as I say, the most valuable commodity that any of us have is our time and people stuck in in traffic is it we're robbing their time from them.

So I'm excited with that.

The other thing is we came up with, we don't know what's going to happen at the federal level, there's negotiations taking place in the White House, probably as we speak.

If if that is a match money, we're standing there, with match money, Idaho match money ready to go, which a lot of other states don't have.

So I like our position better than a lot of our competing states.

We will continue to work with local governments, cities, counties, highway districts, and the state to address those issues going forward.

But a lot of those issues are going to have to be addressed at the local level.

>>I also wanted to ask you about education, which is a huge part in young families wanting to stay here or not.

You know, you came out with a statement saying that you support Idaho teachers and that you did not think that there was a problem with critical race theory or indoctrination happening in public schools.

Alright, how concerned are you about the message that lawmakers are sending to educators with these public discussions?

>>Well, it was in my signing statement that I was.

If you read the text on paper, the bill, it wasn't near as onerous as a lot of the debate.

One of my favorite lines is one of the school districts they're all googling, googling, what's critical race theory that they were teaching.

But it's it's a reaction, we do that in Idaho, what they hear on the federal level in other places, I, I just want to get by it, and tell these teachers how much we value them, give them the resources to help these kids get caught up, I've got a meeting just a little bit with the school district that literally went from 30% proficiency on their readings.

And this is a poor district, with a lot of English language learners up to 80%.

And I'm meeting with the superintendent and some of the teachers about what can I do to help them and to duplicate their success elsewhere to where we can get, continue our success on literacy, and then move it on to college and career readiness.

>>You had that signing statement, you had another signing statement with the property tax bill.

Why not veto them?

>>Very seldom have I seen a perfect bill.

So there's, it's in the veto pile, it's in the I love it pile.

And then most of the legislation is in between.

So in the in between.

If it's pretty close to the veto, you can tell by my signing statement, and some of it was frustration, it was the end of the session, kind of the timing of it, then they knew I didn't like either one of those bills.

But that's why you do what you do.

>>What kind of efforts Do you think the state is going to have to undergo to make sure that kids who did hybrid learning or online learning get caught up or or get to a place where you're comfortable with their reading scores and math scores?

>>The panel I was on last week with the other governors, we were all talking about that how do we how do we get these kids caught up what's what is the best practices in the classroom that we as governors can help.

And of course, they in Idaho, the classrooms got $440 million in ARPA money, which, you know, we are urging them in it.

And that's the intent of the language it came from Congress, we are urging them to use that money to get these kids caught back up.

I talked to classroom teachers and I'm going to talk to some here in just a little bit.

I talked classroom teachers, they says, they say Brad, we can do this, we can get these kids caught back up.

There's always kids that are behind, which is always been my issue and literacy that we want every kid reading proficiently by the end of the third grade.

It's a noble goal, you're probably not going to get there.

But I want to change that.

They're not to a smaller number.

Because what I tell my friends, is your children or grandchildren may be perfect.

If that child sitting next to them, for whatever reason, family, environment, handicap, language issues is behind, you got to realize they're going to drag that classroom down for the entirety of the K 12 career.

So it's in everybody's best interest to help these kids that are in the gap.

>>I also wanted to ask you about higher education.

Do you have confidence in the current leadership of Idaho's higher education institutes?

The the state board and we have a lot of conversations like that we're, we're their job is to hire the university presidents basically say, here's what we want you to do, and create an atmosphere to where we get these kids educated and there's, you know, there been a lot of challenges.

There's, you know, we'd love to see college applications going up when the economy's this good a lot of kids don't want to go to college.

That's universal everywhere.

I have great confidence in the state board that higher education in a lot of areas is a battleship they have to turn around.

And we're I am confident that the direction is being given to higher education.

And frankly, I'm excited about some of the initiatives they're doing.

>>You said you have confidence in the direction that's being given to the President's Do you have confidence in the President's?

>>Well, that's the President's actually work for the state board.

They don't work for me.

And they're, we're gonna get there.

>>What needs to be addressed for it to get there?

>>Well, of course, a lot of it for me is the public and the legislature's confidence in higher education.

That that, in that goes to my theme about everything is confidence in government is that if we got to have a dialogue about their confidence about what's taking place, in the classroom and on their campuses, let's have that discussion.

get everybody involved in it, so that people have confidence that what most Idahoans believe is the is the role of higher education to educate that it's being fulfilled.

And so we need to have that conversation.

>>As we look forward to the summer, of course, the the Senate adjourned for the session, the house, just recessed, they said that if you know that they might consider calling themselves back, circumventing the special session to address perhaps some money that comes into the state if Congress passes a huge infrastructure bill that you alluded to earlier, with money immediately coming to the States, would you be willing to call the legislature back to help decide how to >>I mean, I, a year ago at this point in time, I said you agree on one or two issues I'll call a special session.

I did.

That's not a, you know, that's a constitutional role of the governor.

But I'm more than willing to do it in in conjunction with the legislature.

But I did say I sent em a letter saying, look, if if something happens substantial, we'll have the conversation decide whether we have a special session or not.

That's the way our Idaho Constitution, the way we've done it forever.

You know, we've had only three special sessions in the last 20 years.

Some of these states are having 7, 8, 10, 12 special sessions a year.

I don't believe that people of Idaho want that to be the case.

>>One last question.

We're almost out of time.

Who are you endorsing for lieutenant governor?

>>I'm staying out of all the constitutional races.

>>Are you prepared to work with anyone who might win that if you are elected for a second term?

>>That's my job.

My job is to, you know, uphold the Constitution, the United States Constitution state Idaho and fulfill the duties that govern to the best of my ability.

So help me God and I will do that.

We're gonna have to leave it there.

Governor Brad Little thank you so much for joining us today.

And after this week, the Idaho Reports broadcast schedule is ending for the summer, but the IR team is still reporting on the statewide stories that matter to you.

You can find our reporting on the Idaho Reports blog, the Idaho Reports YouTube channel and the IR podcast.

You'll find links to all of those at Idahoptv.org/IdahoReports.

And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks so much for watching.

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.