[Vision2020] Otter ‘not prepared’ to call special session to address child support

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Idaho Statesman at:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/16/3754119/otter-not-prepared-to-call-special.html

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Otter ‘not prepared’ to call special session to address child support, but promises action
Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/16/3754119/otter-not-prepared-to-call-special.html#storylink=cpy
Gov. Butch Otter said he was “not prepared” yet to call a special legislative session to address a House panel’s late-session vote that threatens to dismantle the state’s ability to process $205 million in child support payments, but added that doing nothing has “not even entered the discussion.”

A House panel on the session’s last day rejected a measure to bring Idaho into compliance with an international treaty on cross-border child support payments and other forms of family assistance. All 50 states must ratify the new provision. 

Failure to do so, in Idaho’s case, threatens $16 million in federal aid to fund the state’s office of Child Protection Services, $30 million in aid under the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and $205 million in payments the Idaho office oversees annually.

The state has until June 12 to find a fix. In the meantime, letters about the potential change are being sent to parties to all 155,000 state child support cases, which involve 400,000 people — including 183,000 children.

“I’m not prepared to stand up here today to tell you that I’m going to call a special session,” Otter said, speaking at his post-session press conference Thursday. “Because I think there’s a lot of homework for us to do, if we were to have a special session, to have a successful one.”

He added: “We are going to be engaged and we’re going to do something.”

The bill was introduced in the Senate and passed unanimously in that body on March 20 before coming to the House. The House panel involved rejected the measure by one vote, 9-8. Otter Thursday declined to comment on the lawmakers who voted against it.

The governor gave the session a grade of ‘A’ on its action on funding for education, but a “B minus or C plus,” or incomplete, on lawmaker’s work on transportation funding. He praised the 7.4 percent increase in public education funding, which includes funding for the first of a five-year teachers salary increase, but was tepid in his appraisal of the Legislature’s approval of $96 million to repair ailing roads and bridges, where the state has an estimated $262 million annual shortfall.


Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/16/3754119/otter-not-prepared-to-call-special.html#story
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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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