Highlights from 02-08-2013

CURSIVE HANDWRITING

Write on, saysEd Committee

A measure directing the State Board of Education to require cursive handwriting in Idaho schools is headed to the full House.

Boise State University communications professor Peter Wollheim said research shows cursive handwriting improves students’ motor and composition skills. Committee chairman Reed DeMordaunt said his son with a learning disability uses cursive to write.

The Associated Press

COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS

Senate OKs more small grants

Senate Bill 1027 would move $5.9 million into an expanded Opportunity Scholarship program, a $3,000-a-year scholarship awarded to 357 students in 2011-12.

The plan reduces the maximum award to $2,000 a year — but the idea is to greatly expand its reach and help more students attend college. The State Board of Education hopes to award 3,000 to 4,000 of the new scholarships at a time.

Gone by the wayside would be the state’s Promise Scholarship, which awarded $200 a semester for the first two years of college.

The plan passed 32-0 and now goes to the House.

Kevin Richert, Idaho Education News

IDAHO TRADEMARK

House to Turkey: Hands off name

That’s the message the House sent Thursday, where representatives voted unanimously to condemn a Turkish agricultural company’s bid to trademark IDAHO for products including sugar beet seeds.

The measure, which already cleared the Senate, urges the Turkish Patent Institute to reject Beta Agriculture and Trade Co.’s bid.

The Idaho Potato Commission already has a trademark on “Idaho.”

The Associated Press

DYNAMIS

Bill would requireincinerator hearings

The Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee voted on Thursday to print a bill to require a county to hold a public hearing if it wants to build on county-owned land an incinerator or energy-producing facility that would increase pollutants.

Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise, introduced the bill, prompted by the Ada County Commissioners’ handling of the Dynamis waste-to-energy project. The county said since the project was within a county-owned landfill, so no public hearing was required.

The permitting process to put an incinerator or energy-producing project within a privately owned landfill already requires a public hearing, he said.

Statesman staff

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Back to drawing board for ed bills

“All the bills from the school boards are being redrafted,” Senate Education Committee Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, said Thursday.

The Idaho School Boards Association has proposed seven bills that contain elements of the voter-rejected Prop 1 collective bargaining law. Among the more contentious components: eliminating “evergreen” contract clauses between teachers’ unions and school boards; language requiring a local teachers’ union to certify that it represents at least 50 percent of certified staff; and language allowing a school board to impose its best and final contract offer in the event of an impasse.

Kevin Richert

CAPITAL FOR A DAY

Otter takes top staffto Weiser Feb. 15

Capital for a Day sessions provide residents a chance to talk with the governor and other senior state officials. The Weiser session is 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Vendome Event Center, with a no-host lunch at noon.

Lt. Gov. Brad Little, Department of Insurance Director Bill Deal, Idaho Transportation Department Director Brian Ness, Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore and others will be on hand.

Statesman staff

PRISON SPENDING

Budget writers OK money for lawsuits

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee approved the Idaho Department of Correction’s requests Thursday morning.

Many of the supplemental requests were connected to a long-running lawsuit brought by inmates at the Idaho State Correctional Institution over poor medical and mental health care at the prison.

The state reached a settlement with the inmates that could bring a close to the case in two years if certain terms are met. To meet those terms, the department requested more than $184,000 to cover legal fees associated with the lawsuit, $562,000 to help pay for 12 additional positions for guards and health care professionals at the prison, and nearly $800,000 to pay for an on-site pharmacy and other medical costs.

The Associated Press

ANONYMOUS POSTS

Panel rejects IDing commenters

The proposal by Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, would create a “rebuttable presumption” that the identity of an online commenter must be disclosed when there’s a defamation or slander suit.

Just two House State Affairs Committee members, Reps. Ken Andrus, R-Lava Hot Springs, and Kelly Packer, R-McCammon, opposed the motion to reject the bill.

Betsy Z. Russell, Spokesman-Review

HUNTING, FISHING

Senate approves 3-year licenses

The unanimous for SB 1004 allows Idaho Fish and Game to sell three-year hunting, fishing or combination licenses to residents and nonresidents

The department proposed the move to try to draw in more sales from sportsmen who buy licenses some years but not others. The bill now goes to the House.

Betsy Z. Russell

INMATE STD TESTS

Officials: Mandatory testing expensive

The Department of Correction asked lawmakers to relax compulsory disease testing for inmates slated for release.

The current law requires inmates be tested for diseases such as HIV and chlamydia when they enter and exit the state’s prison system. The program costs about $360,000 a year.

Officials estimate the savings from making testing voluntary upon release would be significant. They estimate that testing just 5 percent of the 4,000 inmates released annually would cost $7,700.

The Associated Press