The city of Spokane will go to two-year budgets
The Spokane City Council has adopted one of the budgeting practices of the Washington state legislature. It has authorized the city to move to a two-year budgeting cycle. Until now, the city has operated on single-year budgets.
The move is supported by Mayor Lisa Brown, who served for 20 years in Olympia. It’s also supported by Councilman Michael Cathcart.
“We need to start thinking long term. We have to start thinking sustainably and we need to make sure that our program costs and departmental costs and things are sustainable over a longer horizon than just a single year. It’s harder to play games, to move money around, to sweep funds, to delay things when you have to balance over multiple years," he said.
The proposal was adopted as an emergency ordinance, which didn’t sit well with Councilman Jonathan Bingle. He says he supports the two-year budget, but says dislikes using the emergency designation unless it’s truly warranted, which he says is not the case here.
CDA school board approves slimmer budget
Writing the new budget has been a long, painful exercise. District administrators originally projected a several-million-dollar deficit because of lower enrollments, lower payments from the state and higher costs.
The board had already approved several steps to reduce spending. That includes a plan to close one school, Borah Elementary, and use it for other purposes, such as an early learning center and a day care facility for employees. About 240 students will be reassigned to five neighboring schools.
Superintendent Shon Hocker said he hoped enrollment in Coeur d’Alene schools will rebound over the next few years and that Borah will again serve as an elementary school.
The district will also eliminate about 20 teaching positions, though retirements mean no one will lose their jobs. The board also tweaked the school calendar to save money, eliminating the district’s late Monday morning start in favor of a two-hour early dismissal on Fridays.
Judges put hold on Biden Title IX updates
Two federal judges have ruled the Biden Administration overstepped its authority by updating Title IX regulations to include protections for LGBTQ+ students.
The judges both placed temporary holds on the rules for the total of 10 states that brought lawsuits against the changes, including Idaho and Montana.
There are more productive ways the state government could spend its time, North Idaho Pride Alliance Executive Director Sarah Lynch said.
“I would question the fiscal responsibility, honestly, of expending so much money and effort over lawmaking and litigation and legislation," she said, "with this proposal specifically, that applies to such a, you know, miniscule percentage of the population.”
Lynch said this is just another hurdle for LGBTQ+ residents in a state where the legislature has already been curtailing their rights.
“This is just one example of the multitude of legislation that is coming across in Idaho that's attacking LGBT folks, you know, and specifically trans people and, you know, trans children as well," she said. "So sort of wrapping, you know, up into that entire context, it feels overwhelming at times.”
The other changes included in the rules would expand protections for pregnant students and require schools that receive federal funding to act more quickly to address sex-based harassment.
The Department of Education says these updates are necessary to uphold the spirit of Title IX.
The changes are still set to go into effect on August 1 – except in the states where the temporary injunction applies.
Not much snow last winter, but cool spring helped protect what we had
A mild winter didn’t give the Inland Northwest much snow, but a cool spring and summer helped preserve what was there.
A Monday drought briefing co-sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contained no real surprises for residents of eastern Washington and north Idaho. Rainfall and snowfall since last October have been relatively meager, and not much relief is expected in the coming weeks. Reflecting the mild winter, the period since October 1, 2023, has been the 13th-warmest on record in Washington, and seventh-warmest in Idaho.
But the saving grace was a sluggish post-winter warmup. Cooler-than-average temperatures from mid-April through June helped keep the below-average snowpack from melting away prematurely. June temperatures have been four degrees cooler than average in Washington and the Idaho panhandle, University of Washington climatologist Karin Bumbaco said.
“It wasn’t a drought-buster by any means,” Bumbaco said. “But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, particularly for Washington.”
Drought conditions are expected to spread across the Inland Northwest as the summer unfolds.
Thumbs-up from Idaho election audit
A routine review of primary election results in several Idaho counties revealed no surprises compared to unofficial tabulations.
Recounts in Butte, Bingham, Power, Canyon, Twin Falls and Owyhee counties produced results within a few votes of the preliminary counts, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said.
Separately, teams from McGrane’s office also conducted comparisons of ballots in select races by hand. Those audits took place in Bannock, Boundary, Canyon, Cassia, Fremont, Madison, Payette and Valley counties in late May and early June. McGrane said Monday those audits also turned up no anomalous results.
Post-election audits in Idaho are required under a 2022 state law. The counties and precincts to be audited are drawn at random.
- - -
Reporting was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Owen Henderson and Brandon Hollingsworth.