Spokane County Board of Commissioners adopts smaller budget for ‘25
This week, Spokane County’s five-member board of commissioners approved a slimmer operating budget for 2025, reflecting tight financial conditions.
“As our expenses rise and revenues remain flat, the Board tasked departments earlier this year to find ways to reduce costs and identify efficiencies to maximize every taxpayer dollar entrusted to the County,” commission chair Mary Kuney said in a statement.
The $864.8 million budget includes nearly $10 million for 146 affordable housing units for seniors and 44 shelter beds, $12 million for infrastructure projects on the county government campus in Spokane, and money for road repairs and construction.
Kuney noted that next year’s budget increases funding for the county sheriff and prosecutor’s offices for “proactive crime prevention and enhanc[ing] public safety.”
$15 million will go toward expanding the county’s Mental Health Crisis Stabilization Center, and $3 million was allocated for a jail expansion remodeling effort.
Spokane County’s 2024 budget was nearly $918 million.
Idaho refugees worried about Trump deportation plans
Donald Trump’s promise to overhaul America’s immigration policies has many in the Idaho refugee population wondering what this means for their community.
Slobodanka Hodzic is the director for the Agency for New Americans, a nonprofit that helps refugees settle when they arrive in Idaho. Since the election, she said, people the agency serves have reached out wondering if they will be asked to leave the country under a Trump presidency.
“They don’t have nowhere to go. There is lots of anxieties and worries about their family members. They are in the process. Are they going to be able to come?” Hodzic told Boise State Public Radio.
Trump said he’d deport a million undocumented migrants in the first year of his second term, but that would not apply to refugees who are legally in the U.S. Hodzic said the agency is focusing on informing people of their rights as best they can.
“There is lots of misinformation and just fear and anxiety,” she said. “We are trying to be transparent as much as we can, but we still don't know a lot, honestly.”
The Idaho Office for Refugees reports the state welcomed more than 1,100 refugees in 2024, the large majority coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
First post-election carbon auction expected to raise cost of polluting in WA
Washington’s first carbon auction since voters upheld the state’s flagship climate law takes place this morning, Dec. 4.
With the state’s cap on carbon emissions no longer at risk, the price businesses pay to keep polluting is expected to go up.
Major polluters in Washington have to compete in carbon auctions.
They bid to keep adding heat-trapping pollution to the atmosphere.
In just under two years, they’ve paid nearly three billion dollars, supporting a surge in spending on everything from electric school buses to salmon habitat.
“Really great things that are happening with the funds. Lots of work to electrify our transportation, provide public transportation, provide free rides on Amtrak for youth," Western Washington University economist Zoe Plakias said.
Critics say the carbon auctions also drive up the price of gasoline.
Many of the programs aim to help lower-income communities that are most exposed to pollution.
State officials say nearly two-thirds of auction proceeds have benefitted vulnerable populations in communities hard-hit by pollution.
That’s nearly twice the amount required.
The incoming Trump administration has pledged to stop such “environmental justice” work by federal agencies.
That would make state funding from carbon auctions more important than ever for communities burdened by pollution.
WA ag and health officials recommend steps to reduce bird flu spread
Cases of avian flu among agricultural workers are raising concerns in the Northwest. The Washington State Department of Health has reported more than a dozen cases of avian flu among workers in recent months.
“We're always watching for whether this virus could be transmitted to humans. So far, that risk is very low,” Washington's State Veterinarian, Amber Itle, told NWPB.
Confirmed cases are linked to people who cleaned up areas where there were sick birds, Itle said.
“The people who are becoming infected are people who are maybe not wearing their PPE correctly and are having a lot of virus exposure for hours and hours a day,” she said.
DOH spokesperson Roberto Bonaccorso said avian flu can be very serious, even deadly, and workers should protect themselves with gear such as a tight-fitting N95 mask, gloves, goggles, rubber or plastic aprons, and boots.
Itle said both backyard and commercial chickens could be exposed to bird flu, and wild waterfowl are the biggest risk factors.
Health and ag leaders say having different footwear and clothing for different areas, and cleaning and disinfecting shoes when workers move from farm to farm or to their homes are crucial steps to prevent transmission.
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Reporting was contributed by Brandon Hollingsworth, Julie Luchetta, John Ryan and Johanna Bejarano.