[Vision2020] Lawmakers Discuss Difficult Session

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (April 28, 2011) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

 

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Lawmakers discuss difficult session: Schmidt, Trail and Ringo talk ed
reform, Medicaid cuts

By Kelsey Husky, Daily News Staff Writer

April 28, 2011

 

Three local lawmakers presented overviews of what happened during the Idaho
legislative session Wednesday to the League of Women Voters.

 

Sen. Dan Schmidt called it interesting.

 

It was the worst Rep. Tom Trail had seen.

 

Rep. Shirley Ringo said it was ugly.

 

The trio mainly spoke about State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom
Luna's education reform and cuts to Medicaid funding.

 

Luna had only good things to say about education when he was running for
office, Ringo, D-Moscow, said.

 

"As soon as the session began, (he said) we needed big changes," she said,
and by the end of the session, he was "thumping his chest" and taking credit
for a great reform.

 

It entails limiting the collective bargaining powers of public school
teachers, basing teacher pay on performance and integrating technology via
laptop computers.

 

The legislation reduces the teacher salary schedule. Luna thinks the
teachers will be rewarded by the pay-for-performance plan, Ringo said, but
really, most won't be paid more than they were before the cut.

 

On top of that, she said, his plan is to continue "hijacking" money from the
state lottery and putting it into a discretionary funds account. Originally,
that lottery money was to go to a building fund to maintain schools.

 

Trail, R-Moscow, compared Luna with the biblical figure Samson, causing some
in the audience to laugh.

 

I hope he has the same fate, Trail said, "which I think stands a good
chance." Samson, who unbeknowst to his captors had regained his prodigious
strength after his hair grew back, died when he pulled down the pillars of
the temple on his enemies.

 

Trail said the reform was the most dire hit to education since Idaho was
founded.

 

The Moscow School District is facing an estimated $900,000 cut in next
year's state funding, from both declining enrollment and effects of the
reform legislation.

 

Ringo said the cuts to schools have planned increases for the next several
years, and rural schools will be affected the most because they don't have
much funding to begin with.

 

Another legislative action affecting Moscow area residents is cuts to
Medicaid.

 

For every dollar Medicaid is reduced by the state, Trail said, the state
program loses $3 of federal money. That brings the total reduction to about
$100 million.

 

Trail said he received a telephone call from an elderly Moscow woman who has
a disability, diabetes and a heart condition. She called because she needs
transportation to a Coeur d'Alene dentist by July 1 - when Medicaid stops
funding dental work - and wasn't having any luck finding someone to take
her.

 

"I'm sure all three of us are going to get more and more calls just like
that," he said.

 

Schmidt, D-Moscow, who sat on the Health and Welfare Committee, investigated
hospital Medicaid assessments.

 

Each hospital in Idaho pays an assessment to the state, which is actually a
tax, he said. The state uses those funds to increase the federal
government's match. However, eight Idaho hospitals are exempt. Schmidt was
told it was because they were privately owned, for-profit hospitals that do
not accept many Medicaid patients.

 

Upon further investigation by Schmidt, it was discovered the hospitals do
take a fair amount of Medicaid patients but don't pay the state as other
hospitals do. Two of these hospitals are in the Coeur d'Alene area.

 

Schmidt will be on the committee next year and said after the meeting that
he will continue his investigation in the next session.

 

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Idaho state legislators Tom Trail (left), Dan Schmidt (partially hidden) and
Shirley Ringo (right) talk during a League of Women Voters&' meeting at the
1912 Center in Moscow.

 

8968421.jpg

 

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

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