BOISE, Idaho — The 2022 session of the Idaho Legislature begins Monday with Gov. Brad Little's fourth State of the State Address. It's his opportunity to lay out his legislative and budget priorities, including education and tax relief for Idahoans.
The governor's not the only one with a priority list. House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel (D-Boise) and House Speaker Scott Bedke (R-Oakley) laid out their parties' priorities during the taping of this Sunday's "Viewpoint." Big topics that came up include tax relief in general, property tax relief, fixing the foster care system, repairing roads and bridges, and dealing with drought and wildfires.
Both leaders said education funding and programs are at the top of their agendas.
"It's really unforgivable with the amount of money we have in the bank that we continue to be in last place in America on education funding," Rubel said. "It's starting to pan out in our numbers. We've been seeing dropping literacy, dropping go-on rates, dropping high school graduation rates. It's really impacting our future and the future of our children in bad ways. And beyond funding full-day kindergarten, which is the very top priority, just across the board we've got to get teacher pay to a competitive rate, and frankly we'd like to see some facilities funding because that's another thing that's hitting property tax payers."
"We understand that the most critical component to a good education in Idaho is a good teacher, particularly in our K-12 systems and particularly in the K-3," Bedke said. "We want our kids leaving the third grade reading at grade level. We've got to be on top of our literacy issues here. We've seen from some of the early data that we've given some of the scores back, at least when it comes to literacy in K-3, and we can't allow that to happen. We've got to get on top of that."
This Sunday on "Viewpoint," Representatives Rubel and Bedke also discuss their parties' other priorities and how they want to use the state's $1.6 billion budget surplus. "Viewpoint" airs Sunday morning at 9 o'clock on KTVB Idaho's NewsChannel 7.
Then on Monday, we'll bring you the governor's State of the State Address live at 1 p.m. on NewsChannel 7, KTVB.COM and the KTVB YouTube Channel.
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