“To be perfectly frank, Idahoans are well aware this is hardly the first time the House has voted to repeal the ACA,” Simpson said in a written statement. “In fact, this is the 37th time the House has voted to repeal part or all of the law since it was implemented. While it may sound like a poor use of Congress’ time, I believe it is a reflection of how deeply unpopular the law remains, not just in the House, but across the country and especially in Idaho.”

Simpson added his concerns about the impact of Obamacare on existing health insurance costs, stating that “Americans’ insurance premiums will increase at enormous rates.” Simpson also said that insurance costs are likely to rise anywhere from 100 percent to 400 percent as the law is implemented.

Gov. Butch Otter, who proposed and supported legislation to create a state insurance exchange earlier this year as a means of complying with the Obamacare law, has nonetheless expressed his support for its full repeal.

The repeal legislation will now be sent to the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has disclosed that it is facing some financial challenges with the implementation of Obamacare, the federal health care reform law. The announcement has raised concerns with both state and federal elected officials within Idaho.

“I’m now left wondering about how out state insurance exchange will be funded,” said Sen. Steve Thayn, R-Emmett. Having voted “no” on the state Senate insurance exchange bill earlier this year, Thayn spoke with IdahoReporter.com about a story in the Washington Post indicating that the U.S. Congress has cut off additional funding for the implementation of Obamacare.

According to the report, Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary, has begun asking health care providers, insurance companies and church-based charity groups to donate money to private, nonprofit insurance exchanges around the country so the exchanges can complete their work of implementing the Obamacare program.

Thayn told IdahoReporter.com “part of the rationale behind legislating Idaho’s insurance exchange was the understanding that federal funds would be available to create it. I’m now concerned that Idaho may begin spending state funds on this when, in fact, that was never supposed to happen.”

Rep. Kelley Packer, R-McCammon, who voted “yes” on the state insurance exchange bill and who now serves on Gov. Butch Otter’s insurance exchange board, shares some of Thayn’s concerns.

“It certainly raised red flags for me,” Packer said of the report about HHS. “I can tell you, however, that none of the expenses of the insurance exchange have been paid yet, and no state funds have been spent on it. I’ve even had some expenses of my own, traveling from McCammon to Boise for board meetings. None of my expenses or any other expenses related to the exchange have been paid, and they won’t be until we have the federal exchange funding that we have been promised.”

Packer also told IdahoReporter.com that Idaho has recently received one of the smaller federal grants intended for the state insurance exchange, valued $375,000; that a larger grant of $20 million which HHS had promised Idaho earlier in the year has been appropriated to the state; and that both checks should be deposited in the insurance exchange bank account soon.

While state officials have been fretting about funding for Idaho’s insurance exchange, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo has raised concerns about the possibility of conflicts of interest with HHS soliciting private donations.

“We absolutely see the potential for conflicts,” said Crapo spokesperson Lindsey Nothern. Crapo issued a press release earlier this week expressing this concern, but Nothern elaborated on those concerns with IdahoReporter.com. “When a federal agency that regulates a business pressures that business to help support a favored government initiative, that’s definitely a potential problem” Nothern stated. “If any private company is pressured to financially support Obamacare, we’d like to know about that immediately.”

Packer agrees with Crapo’s concern. “I agree with Sen. Crapo,” Packer told IdahoReporter.com. “But I also want to stress that we are not going to implement something at the state level that is not funded at the federal level, and we will not let the federal government mandate this thing and then abandon their commitments to us. If the feds let this thing fall through, then we’ll be done with it, too.”

“It’s not a rumor, it’s a fact,” district spokesperson Allison Westfall told IdahoReporter.com about the upcoming sale of both land and facilities property by the district.

While it has been widely reported that the district was selling some acreage, Westfall clarified that the buyer is Capital Educators Federal Credit Union, and the transaction will involve structural facilities as well. “Part of the sale involves a house that is essentially being used as a parents’ outreach center, where we currently provide services for homeless parents and children,” she said.

The property sale is valued at approximately $600,000, Westfall noted. “After this sale, and with our additional levy, we estimate that our debt will be brought down to approximately $200,000,” she stated.

The Nampa School District’s financial troubles have been a matter of public concern for at least the past three years. In 2010 the district drew fire when it was discovered that its board of trustees had agreed to a teachers’ union contract that required the district to spend taxpayer dollars to reimburse teachers for their union dues. Despite the fact that the district was struggling with reduced state funding at that time, it nonetheless spent $154,491 that year to honor the union dues provision of the contract.

Similarly, in 2011 it was discovered that another provision of the teacher’s’ union contract required the Nampa School District to pay $52,978 toward the salary and benefits of a teacher in the district who was in turn “released” from teaching duties to carry out union organizing activities during school hours.

“We no longer reimburse for union dues,” Westfall told Idaho Reporter.com Wednesday. Similarly, Westfall added that the district’s current union contract no longer requires that a teacher be paid by the district to organize union activity instead of teaching.

Earlier this month, on May 6, the district’s board of trustees voted to privatize its custodial services work, eliminating approximately 87 full-time employee positions and agreeing to contract with a private sector firm for such services. Westfall told IdahoReporter.com at that time that the district anticipated saving approximately $300,000 a year with the privatization decision.

Similarly, the trustees voted Tuesday to eliminate 12 elementary and 15 secondary teaching positions by attrition. The teachers are either quitting or retiring, and they will not be replaced.

Westfall noted that the district may very well need to make additional staffing cuts in the near term. “We are finalizing our budgets, both with general funds and with federal funds right now, and we will be entering into negotiations for a new union contract tonight (Wednesday),” she stated, but did not elaborate on what the possible staffing cuts may entail.

County commissioners have said that their only intent is to reinvigorate mining by fixing Big Creek Road. This is hardly an “urban” corridor, which should raise red flags for voters. And for the property owners of on Big Creek, don’t be surprised what comes next: The county will re-assess your home, determine it is worth more because of the new road, and that increase in valuation will be used to pay back the debt associated with the road project.

And indeed, just because the road is built doesn’t mean it will translate into additional mining activity. It is quite possible the county will end up with a nice, improved road but little economic activity to show for it. That means taxpayers will be on the hook for higher taxes and they will get nothing in return.

But wait, there’s more: Once an urban renewal agency is created by a vote of the people, it remain in place forever. Yes, Big Creek Road is the only project discussed today. But what’s next? A new jail? Courthouse? School buildings? We have seen this before in other parts of the state. Because voters need to approve bonds, urban renewal is a handy way to bypass voters on all projects going forward. You will never again be asked to approve anything. Yet your taxes will go up, for items you would have never imagined endorsing, all in the name of economic development.

Note: Following is the second in a number of stories to appear in IdahoReporter.com during the coming weeks examining the Common Core K-12 academic standards. Future stories, for example, will discuss the private funding that has been driving the Common Core initiative, pros and cons of establishing national standards, the anticipated costs to the state for implementing Common Core standards, why some states are choosing to adopt the standards while a few others are not, why some states are rethinking their support for the standards and how the standards are being implemented in classrooms.

In this second of a multi-part series, IdahoReporter.com interviews an opponent of the Common Care standards being implemented in Idaho. The first story, published on April 29, identified pros and cons of three of the most common claims about Common Core.
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As the fall 2013 deadline draws closer for Idaho public schools to implement the national Common Core academic standards, opposition to the initiative is emerging among parental groups around the state.

“We object to the Common Core agenda for three broad reasons,” said Stacey Knudsen, a member of Idahoans for Local Education (IFLE). A grassroots movement headquartered in Boise, IFLE claims to have supporters in Idaho Falls, Rigby and Coeur d’Alene. It also says that the Common Core academic standards diminish local control of public education.

“The Common Core standards are essentially untested, and that’s the first objection we have to this agenda,” Knudsen told IdahoReporter.com.

“Secondly,” said Knudsen, “we object to the imposition of the so-called ‘high stakes tests,’ which essentially will replace our ISAT tests (Idaho Standards Achievement Tests).”

Knudsen also said that the consortium of states that adopt Common Core will also begin to craft curriculum for implementation in the nation’s schools, and she cites this as her group’s third objection. “This is the most alarming aspect of it for me” she stated. “The consortium of the states, all operating under the U.S. Department of Education, will have the power to craft curriculum, instead of locally elected school board members making these decisions. This should be a concern for all parents in Idaho. Elected school board members are beholden to their voters, yet we can barely speak with, let alone un-elect, the U.S. Department of Education.”

Common Core, officially named the Common Core State Standards Initiative, is a set of academic standards that students in the various grade levels are expected to achieve. Officially sponsored by the National Governors’ Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the beginnings of the effort were led by state school superintendents who proposed standards that all of the 50 states could adopt.

The effort to get all 50 states to adopt the standards officially began in 2009. In 2011 the education committees of both the Idaho House of Representatives and the Senate, along with the Idaho Board of Education, agreed that Idaho would officially join the movement.

Idaho State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna is one supporter of the Common Core standards who has nonetheless expressed concerns about the Obama administration’s disposition toward it.

“Superintendent Luna always has concerns when the federal government tries to take credit for what the states have accomplished,” Luna spokesperson McGrath told IdahoReporter.com, noting that during the last election cycle, Obama repeatedly claimed in his campaign speeches that he and his administration had brought uniformity to public education around the country. The president also asserted this claim in his State of the Union address in January of this year.

Luna has maintained that if the federal government seeks to misuse Common Core as a means of exercising undue control over Idaho’s schools, the state will back out of the initiative.

Knudsen, however, says this will not be easily done. “According to the agreements signed by Superintendent Luna and Gov. Otter, Idaho will need to get the approval of the U.S. Department of Education and all the other states in the consortium before we can get out of this,” she told IdahoReporter.com. “It can be done, but it’s going to be a long and complex process, and we should start now.”

In January of this year, IFLE founder Stephanie Zimmerman testified about the Common Core initiative before the Idaho House Education Committee, noting at the time that “this (Common Core) will do to education in Idaho what Obamacare is doing to health care in Idaho.”

After hearing Zimmerman’s concerns, Rep. Linden Bateman, R-Idaho Falls, noted that “I voted for the Common Core standards, but I agree that we have to watch these things very carefully. More innovation comes from a de-centralized system, rather than a centralized system. Let’s watch this very carefully and not move toward a national curriculum.”