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.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

State lawmakers are itching to get out of Boise and head home to campaign for reelection.

But there's still that pesky matter of balancing the state budget, and some of the biggest pots of available funds can only be tapped with a policy bill.

They have one job and we'll see how it works out.

I'm Logan Finney.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello, and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, I sit down with Whitney Bryen of Investigate West to discuss her investigative series into allegations of sexual misconduct at Idaho prisons.

We'll also get caught up on Medicaid and higher education budgets with two capitol reporters.

But first, it's Sunshine Week, a nonpartisan yearly civic celebration recognizing the importance of public records and open government.

Our host and lead producer, Melissa Devlin, was at Sunshine Fest this week in Washington, D.C.

; here's her report from the field.

I'm in Washington, D.C.

at Sunshine Fest thanks to a grant from the Bruckner Center for Freedom of Information for celebrating 60 years of the Federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.

FOIA allows citizens to request information from federal agencies, and though it isn't without its flaws, like extremely long timelines, it's amazing that we have this law that preserves access to documents that show us what bureaucrats and elected officials are doing with our taxpayer money.

In Idaho, Governor Brad Little signed a proclamation declaring this week Sunshine Week in the Gem State.

I'll note he didn't invite any media or government transparency advocates to that signing of the proclamation.

That's okay.

Idaho also has laws guaranteeing the public's right to access information, and it's a great law.

But again, it's not without its flaws.

For one, when there is an improper delay, denial over redaction or overcharge are only legal recourse is to sue, which is expensive and time consuming.

And when citizens do sue, it's expensive for taxpayers, regardless of who wins that lawsuit.

It's important to note that journalists don't advocate for issues with one big exception, and that's access to records and public meetings.

This is something that we do at the Idaho Press Club, but journalists aren't the only ones who can request records.

These are your records, the public’s records, and you have a right to request them, too.

From Washington, D.C., I'm Melissa Davlin.

Here's to sunshine and transparency.

While in D.C., Melissa also caught up with former state Representative Wendy Horman, the new director of the Federal Office of Child Care at HHS, to see how the new role has affected her views on federalism.

I'm the director of the Office of Child Care at the Administration for Children and Families, in Secretary Kennedy's Health and Human Services agency.

And, as you know, I work for Assistant Secretary Alex Adams, who was the budget director in Idaho for years and also the director of health and welfare.

So, we've just picked right up where we left off in terms of accountability and really getting good policies in place around childcare.

Two months on the job.

What have you learned?

I've learned that my commitment to children and government transparency travels well.

My deep commitment to especially underserved children and families of modest means, has only deepened.

And my commitment to making sure that every dollar is spent in a way that benefits children, and eliminates fraud and abuse, taxpayer dollars means something, and we need to protect them and see that they're used efficiently and effectively.

Has it changed your perspective on the relationship between state and federal government, now that you are part of the federal government instead of the state?

Only strengthened my commitment to federalism.

You know, I served on that committee while I was in Idaho because I am a strong believer in states' rights.

I still am, and maybe even more so.

I want to make sure that states have the ability to use these federal funds, which I don't decide anymore.

That's not my lane.

I don't decide the amount or the policy, or I should say the law that governs it.

That's Congress's lane.

But I do get the chance to influence regulations and make decisions that impact how states can use it.

We want to see them have the greatest amount of flexibility they can, while being responsible about the dollars, and making sure there's strong parental choice so that parents can choose the best option that works for child care.

You've heard me say that a million times about education.

It's the same with childcare.

I miss my friends in the Idaho Legislature.

I applaud the good work that they're doing.

I don't miss some of the shenanigans I see going on from a distance, but not my problem to resolve anymore.

I worked really hard to be a stable force in the role I had, especially in appropriations, to give some certainty, both to agencies but especially to my colleagues, and the people of Idaho.

You know, it was a priority of mine to make sure that taxpayer dollars were guarded and used for efficient and effective purposes, and I applaud the people who are continuing that work.

It's really critical, at all levels of government; federal, state, local, that we have transparent and accountable budgeting.

I'm working on that here, and I'm glad my colleagues are still working on those things in Idaho.

Meanwhile, back at the statehouse, there's still plenty to get done before lawmakers can head home for the spring campaign season.

There's that pesky matter of balancing the budget.

The two biggest pots of money left to maybe tap into: Medicaid and education.

Despite much hand-wringing from his administration and staff, Governor Brad Little on Monday evening signed Senate Bill 1331, the 2026 Idaho Rescissions Act.

As a reminder, that bill only implemented the legislature's cuts to the current fiscal year's budget.

That's the 3% hold backs Little had already ordered over the interim, plus another 1% to help pad the bottom line.

The Joint Finance Appropriations Committee incorporated a similar cut - Little's ongoing 3% hold backs, plus another 2% cushion - into the so-called 'maintenance' bills for the upcoming year.

They're then restoring some of those cuts in enhancement bills.

In an analysis piece this week at Idaho Ed News, senior reporter and blogger Kevin Richert wrote, quote: To put it mildly, little deferred to the Legislature To put it more accurately, he acquiesced to the legislature.

Again.

As he has done repeatedly.

End quote.

I sat down with Kevin on Wednesday to discuss the overall status of the higher education budgets, and what comes next, as lawmakers sprint toward adjournment sine die.

Kevin, thanks for being here.

Oh, thanks for having me, as always.

What's the latest state of the higher education budget?

Where are we at?

There.

Well, that passed the House on Monday, and that's the- that's the maintenance budget, for higher education for next year.

And it does incorporate a new round of cuts for higher education.

And as we've reported all through the session, higher ed is going to take a disproportionate share of these budget cuts, because when you exempt K-12 and you exempt Medicaid and state police and prisons, as the legislature has done, that's going to put a bigger share of the cuts on everybody else, including higher education.

And that came up a little bit in the debate.

There wasn't very much debate on the House floor, and it passed, I believe it was, 46 to 24 or thereabouts.

Pretty overwhelming Republican support for that maintenance budget.

Now it goes to the Senate, and it'll be interesting to see what happens with it in the Senate, in light of the fact that the Senate has already voted down a maintenance budget, you know, last week.

The Health and Human Services Package Right, they killed the Health and Human Services budget fairly resoundingly.

So that makes you wonder what kind of appetite there is for a maintenance budget for higher education that includes cuts.

Well, we'll see when it hits the Senate floor.

Like you said, there were plenty of no votes in the House.

More than more than two dozen, more than two dozen no votes including some Republicans.

For the folks who gave that, bill a red light instead of a green light, did they explain their opposition, what they were opposed to in it?

The only person who debated against the bill was, House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel from Boise.

And she raised concerns about what's already happening on the college campuses in terms of layoffs at Idaho State University.

A pretty major restructuring going on at Boise State University, where they're, they're getting rid of a college and combining two other programs, two other major programs.

University of Idaho has said that these budget cuts are going to lead to staff reductions.

So Rebelle brought up those things and said, you know, this is the worst thing we could be doing for our economy right now.

Cutting into our higher education investment at a time when, when our economy needs it.

The House unanimously passed a change to the parental rights bill.

This touches on schools, but a lot of other areas as well.

First of all, catch us up to speed.

What was the issue that was caused that needs fixed?

This is a bill that is supposed to fix a 2024 law about about parental rights and parental control.

There are a couple of things, key things that this fix would try to address.

And as of right now.

So on Wednesday, the bill came before the Senate State Affairs Committee and was moved to the amending order.

But two of the main fixes that, that did come up again in committee on Wednesday.

It would fix, what schools can do or what other entities can do with a child in a non-emergency setting.

This has become known as the band aid provision in this, in this law and.

Referring to like a school nurse or secretary who needs to put a band aid on.

Would not be able to or there was question would a school nurse be able to put a Band-Aid on a cut?

The clarification in the new bill is supposed to make it clear that, yes, they can do that.

The other thing, is that it makes it clear what, what happens when a teen calls, the state's suicide hotline?

What happens, in terms of, does that does that minor get any kind of follow up phone call and what's what's come up?

And we heard it again in testimony on Wednesday morning is; the way it stands right now if a teenager calls that, that hotline and does not have parental consent, the folks on the other end, the folks at the hotline feel like they have really no choice at this point but to kind of terminate the call.

They're trying to make clear with the new language that, if a if a student calls and, you know, is expressing suicidal ideation that they are supposed to get a follow up call from, from the hotline.

Different bill that is not getting very much momentum behind it was a proposal to do away with all childhood vaccine requirements.

Can you bring us up to speed on that proposal?

Yeah.

So this again, was a follow up.

This follows up the medical freedom law that was passed in 2025.

And one of the biggest things that this would have done was it would have turned Idaho's immunization registry, from an opt out program to an opt in program.

So right now, parents, if they don't want to report their child's immunization records to the state, they can opt out.

This would turn that on its head.

And advocates for the program are saying if you do that, it becomes less of an effective registry.

And you know what we heard in House Committee last week, we heard from school nurses saying this is something we use, you know, and it's something we would use if there was an outbreak in our school.

This is how we would know which families to call, who to alert about a potential outbreak.

So the bill died and it died and kind of a complicated voting process in committee, but, it was, it's dead for the session.

But I don't think the issue of medical freedom is dead by any means.

Maybe just for this year.

A policy from last year that is still getting discussed: the parental choice tax credit.

Tax credits for public school, private school expenses.

That application period closed on Sunday.

Do we know how many families have officially applied and are in the pipeline?

Yes we do.

I looked it up on my way over.

Thank you.

So as of the close of the application period, which is over the weekend, we had 6069 applications.

Now that covers 13,568 students.

So you had you know, some families obviously applying for multiple children in the house.

-children in the house.

Sure.

So we don't know how that equates to the $50 million cap in the program.

Families can get up to $5,000 per child or $7,500 per child, if if it's a special needs student that's, getting the assistance.

So we don't know how much money these applicants could be seeking.

But if we just did the rough math, if you just took that 13,000 plus and you multiply it by $5000, again, this is a really rough estimate.

That's well more than 50,000 that, that's well more than $50 million.

-the pool of money available.

Right.

So if that all were to play out that way and I'm making a bunch of assumptions and cocktail napkin math, it would suggest that there's quite a bit of demand for this money, maybe more demand than there, there is money available.

And to be clear, it's not just a blank $5,000 check for every kid.

Oh, it's an actual you have to turn in receipts and you get back reimbursement for the expenses that you paid.

Yeah.

And that's why using the $5,000, cocktail napkin estimate is a really rough, rough estimate, because there may be quite a few parents that are seeking far less than the $5000.

All right.

Well, final question for you.

As we get closer to the end of the session here, hopefully, what remaining education issues and budgets are you keeping an eye on?

In other words, what comes next before we go home?

Yeah, hopefully.

Is, working hard here.

Operative word.

Yeah.

I what I'm watching for now, in the last, throes of the session, is what happens with the Idaho Digital Learning Alliance.

This is the state's online learning platform.

It's widely used, especially in rural Idaho.

Home schools and public schools.

Yes.

And you've had a number of bills, the most recent one came through the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday to try to rein in some of what's happening with IDLA.

You gotta go back to the beginning of the legislative session.

Governor Little said that he wanted to cut about $10 million from IDLA’s budget.

That's a pretty big hit, because this is about a $25 million a year program.

And we've had various iterations of bills to address IDLA.

We had a bill that didn't go anywhere in the House that would have gotten rid of the program entirely.

We've had other, other bills that have tried to take different slices out of that budget.

The latest one would be about a $13 million hit on this program.

So it basically cut its funding pretty much in half.

Pretty close to it.

Sure.

And we cut some programs that are, pretty popular around the state.

There's a program called Launchpad that's an early reading program for kids from kindergarten through fifth grade.

That would be, on the on the chopping block.

So driver's education, a lot of that’s offered through that, through IDLA as well.

So there are a lot of pieces in this.

And like I said, if we are really heading into the final, you know, few weeks of the session, this bill just barely got introduced.

There's been a lot of thrashing around, I think, to try to find an IDLA bill that has traction in the legislature.

And, you know, time is running out and there are budget implications because, Governor Little has used that $10 million cut that he wants to get out of IDLA as one piece of his proposal to balance the budget.

Well there is of course balancing the budget is the one thing they're constitutionally required to do.

We'll see what upstream of that finally gets done.

Yes.

They have one job and we'll see how it works out.

Kevin Richert, Idaho Education News.

Thanks so much for coming down and speaking with us.

Thanks, Logan.

You can find an extended cut of that conversation online with Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News, where we discuss the Idaho Home Learning Academy and a bill headed to Little's desk to require a 60 second period of silence to start each public school day.

That interview is available online on the Idaho Reports YouTube channel at YouTube.com/IdahoReports, or in whatever app you use to listen to podcasts.

For years, education was the largest slice of Idaho's budget pie, but it's been surpassed in recent years by the Medicaid program.

Lawmakers voice constant concerns about the trajectory of the Medicaid program's expenses, and Governor Little this year proposed $22 million in cuts to undetermined programs and services to help balance out the budget.

I sat down on Thursday with Kyle Pfannenstiel of the Idaho Capital Sun to get an update on disability services funding, and what still needs to be done.

Kyle, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

So, catch us up to speed.

What's going on currently with the Medicaid disability services budget?

Where is it in the process?

Yeah, so it's been a lot to follow, mostly over the past month.

There's a bill, House Bill 863, that calls for cutting nearly $22 million from the budget for Medicaid disability services.

This would be specifically for residential rehabilitation services, which, help people with developmental disabilities live independently.

This would be cutting provider pay rates.

So, the state reimburses providers under this program for their care, and this would be cutting their reimbursement rate by about $22 million.

the bill is now headed to the to the Senate, that's its last stop before going to the governor's desk.

a lot of folks from the disability community have spoken out about these cuts, saying they're going to be especially harmful.

And some providers have talked about how these cuts might force them to close, because these pay raises that the legislature approved helps them raise their pay for staff.

And so they say they're going to have to go back to square one, to these low paying wages they offered.

One provider talked about before the raises, she was offering $12 an hour to her staff members to do this kind of physically demanding work, sometimes.

Physically and emotionally.

Yeah.

So there's the budget element, the dollars and cents - but the services that Idaho requires the state to provide are put in statute, they are law - they are policy, in words of the statehouse jargon.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard legislation to implement these fiscal cuts.

There was some bipartisan opposition brought up in the hearing, though.

What sort of concerns did we hear from lawmakers there?

Yeah.

So, Senator Wintrow, Melissa Wintrow, she's a Democrat from Boise, was concerned that these cuts are going to deep and they're going to hurt people and people's access to services.

And then there was an interesting coalition, Senator Brian Lenney and Senator Josh Keyser, both more conservative Republicans, talked about how they wish that these cuts weren't going to be affecting some of the most vulnerable patients on Medicaid, which they say Medicaid was designed for.

They were supposed to be coming from Medicaid expansion, and that's why they opposed it.

That did delay the bill by a few days, and then it ended up clearing the committee, just yesterday.

All right, as we're talking here on Thursday.

What about from folks in the disability community?

What's their state, what's their vantage point on the current state of play at the Capitol?

folks in disability community have come out opposed to these cuts.

We've had patients and providers for reshab services speaking to speaking to lawmakers and opposing these bills, but they still carried it out.

I think lawmakers think that this is one of the one of the least impactful cuts that they could make, out of the options they have for Medicaid cuts.

There's not a lot of easy options.

Not any easy options, for sure.

What about any other Department of Health and Welfare related budgets?

How are we doing there?

There's the big health and human services maintenance budget that got voted down last week that needs to be reintroduced into the process, right?

I'm told that that they redrafted that bill, largely how it was before.

And they included these Medicaid disability cuts in it, and that could be going up to the floor.

It may take a little while for them to draft the bill, but that will go through the cycle again, of going to the House and Senate.

All right.

Well, we'll see where session takes us as we head towards sine die.

Kyle Pfannenstiel with the Idaho Capitol Senate, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me, Logan.

Last Friday, the bipartisan Joint Legislative Oversight Committee directed the Office of Performance Evaluations to investigate the state's prevention, reporting, investigation, and response procedures when handling allegations of sexual misconduct by Idaho Department of Corrections staff.

That proposed OPE report comes in response to the Investigate West series "Guarded by Predators," a deeply reported investigation revealing dozens of rarely prosecuted allegations against women's prison guards at IDOC facilities.

You know, I kept getting questions from, people who had read the articles and were very alarmed.

I talked to the Department of Corrections that hadn't walked me through.

You know how.

Tell me about this.

What's going on?

Joining me to discuss that proposed OPE report, and her investigation that started it, is Whitney Bryen with Investigate West.

Whitney, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So for folks who aren't familiar with your reporting and this series at Investigate West, tell us about the original investigation?

Well, last fall in October, my co-reporter and I, Wilson Criscone, we put out a series that was six stories about what we found over a yearlong investigation into sexual assault allegations.

They were against staff at women's prisons here in Idaho.

So, we were hearing from women who were incarcerated that they were being sexually harassed, and in some cases assaulted, even raped by guards and other prison workers, that they were afraid to report those things because of the potential consequences and retaliation to them.

The ones who did report those things felt like they were not being believed as victims in those cases, not being taken seriously.

Many of those cases did not make it to the hands of police, so they didn't get a criminal investigation at all.

And the few that did, most of those did not end up with prosecutions or charges for the prison workers.

So, essentially what we found is that these cases are just not being handled properly through the prison system or once they reach the criminal investigation stage.

And I think this is important, this focus on women's prison, because I do want to note that on a per capita basis, Idaho incarcerates more women than any other state in the nation.

That's correct.

We're high in the nation for incarceration rates for both men and women, but absolutely we lead the nation for incarcerating women per capita here.

So the original core block of investigative stories, the original series, came out in October.

What has happened since then, since the investigation was published?

Quite a few things actually have happened since then.

Initially, we heard from several public officials who made statements right after we published, saying, this is unacceptable.

You know, if true, something needs to change.

The Board of Correction, that's the public board that oversees the Department of Correction, the prison system, they had a meeting where they asked for an update on what that process looks like inside the prison system.

The governor came out and said, you know, we want to make sure that we're prioritizing transparency and accountability for these issues.

We even saw pretty quickly the Department of Correction reopened a case of one of the women that we wrote about.

They changed the finding there from "unfounded," which essentially meant we don't think this happened to you, and we're closing the case with no action.

They change that outcome to "substantiated," which means now that they've relooked at the evidence that she provided, they do believe that it happened.

And this employee that she accused had already left the department, so there were no, you know, consequences of that person being fired.

But having the change in that case, that was a real win for her.

And we heard she just really felt heard, and was hopeful that more cases would be taken seriously.

That's an important dynamic here.

The guard is not there to be someone who's punishing an inmate.

They're there to make sure things are safe, and everyone's where they're supposed to be.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And we've also seen, you know, public officials coming out and talking about these things.

The legislature has been talking about this as well, and we see a bill that's working its way through the Senate right now - it's already passed the House - that would change a law that we have here in Idaho.

It's basically the felony that these guards who are accused of these crimes would be charged with, if they were charged by a prosecutor.

So that law here is pretty narrow, and it makes it difficult for prosecutors to charge these guards who are accused.

And so, there's some tweaks being made to that law that would make it a little bit easier for prosecutors to take those people to court.

So we're watching that.

It looks like - we're hearing from the sponsor of that bill that he's confident - it will pass and get signed by the governor soon.

Okay.

I do want to note we talked a little bit at the top of the show.

It is sunshine week, so we're having a little bit of a focus on open government and transparency.

What has the Department of Correction specifically done in response to the investigation?

That's a great question.

So one of the things we found in our investigation was that the public records process and the public information process that the department had, that the prison system had, wasn't working.

They were not following the law when it came to answering our questions and our requests for documentation when we were reporting.

And that's actually gotten worse.

So, I mentioned earlier that the governor had called for more transparency, prioritizing, that.

He had a proclamation out earlier this week about that principle generally, for Sunshine Week.

Week.

Yes, absolutely.

And that's something we hear from the governor's office often.

However, in this case, behind the scenes, the governor's office was actually telling some of the agencies we were requesting information from, the Idaho State Police for instance was one of them, not to release information to us.

And since we published those reports back in the fall, there are a couple of agencies: the prison system, so the Department of Correction, as well as POST, that's the agency that certifies law enforcement and correctional officers.

They have decided to start withholding information about law enforcement employees across the state.

They were previously releasing some of that information.

We used that and relied heavily on it to do our reporting.

But now they're saying we've reevaluated our process.

We're reinterpreting the law, which has not changed, and we're now going to stop giving you information.

Okay, well, we will certainly be keeping an eye on that as it moves forward.

Folks back home should certainly check out your investigative series, "Guarded by Predators" by Investigate West.

Whitney Bryen, thanks for being here.

Thanks for everyone back home, we will see you right back here on Idaho Reports, next week, Thursday at 8:30PM.

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.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.