Latest news with #SenateBill1202
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Campaign funds could be used for taking care of dependents
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ / MARCH 20 It was a full house at the state Capitol during the recent spring break : Rep. Luke Evslin, left, with his children, Levi, 6, and Finley, 8, on the chair with Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa's daughter, Kawai, 6, as Rep. Trish La Chica tended to daughter Ricki, 5, while son Foggy, 8, kept himself busy, right. 1 /2 JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ / MARCH 20 It was a full house at the state Capitol during the recent spring break : Rep. Luke Evslin, left, with his children, Levi, 6, and Finley, 8, on the chair with Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa's daughter, Kawai, 6, as Rep. Trish La Chica tended to daughter Ricki, 5, while son Foggy, 8, kept himself busy, right. JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ Rep. Luke Evslin walks with son Levi, 6, at the state Capitol. During spring break, Evslin has been bringing his kids to his Capitol office, where they've been joined by Rep. Trish La Chica's kids. 2 /2 JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ Rep. Luke Evslin walks with son Levi, 6, at the state Capitol. During spring break, Evslin has been bringing his kids to his Capitol office, where they've been joined by Rep. Trish La Chica's kids. JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ / MARCH 20 It was a full house at the state Capitol during the recent spring break : Rep. Luke Evslin, left, with his children, Levi, 6, and Finley, 8, on the chair with Rep. Kirstin Kahaloa's daughter, Kawai, 6, as Rep. Trish La Chica tended to daughter Ricki, 5, while son Foggy, 8, kept himself busy, right. JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @ Rep. Luke Evslin walks with son Levi, 6, at the state Capitol. During spring break, Evslin has been bringing his kids to his Capitol office, where they've been joined by Rep. Trish La Chica's kids. Political candidates would be allowed to use campaign funds to take care of their dependents, such as child care expenses, in what several supporters hope will attract more diverse, family-oriented candidates to run for political office. They would not be allowed to pay family members to take care of their children or parents living in their homes if Senate Bill 1202 gets signed into law by Gov. Josh Green. He's in American Samoa this week to commemorate the 125th anniversary of when the U.S. flag was first raised on Tutuila Island. And Green's office has told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Green will withhold comment on any pending legislation until after the session's scheduled adjournment May 2. Bills similar to SB 1202 have cleared the Senate but failed to pass the House until this year, when House Democrats elected Hawaii's first female House speaker, Nadine Nakamura. If it becomes law this year, Hawaii would join 39 states and the District of Columbia that followed a 2018 decision by the Federal Election Commission to allow candidates for federal office to use campaign funds for child care, according to the Vote Mama Foundation. The foundation advocates for the use of campaign funds for child care in all 50 states and supports passage of SB 1202. Don 't miss out on what 's happening ! Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE ! Email 28141 Sign Up By clicking to sign up, you agree to Star-Advertiser 's and Google 's and. This form is protected by reCAPTCHA. But it also would help political candidates take care of their older family members, said Gary Simon, a member of the board of the Hawai 'i Family Caregiver Coalition, which advocates for support for adult care. But there's an overlap between care for children and caring for fragile senior citizens, Simon told the Star-Advertiser. 'If it's friendly for the elderly, it's friendly for the young ones, too, ' Simon said. 'Age-friendly policies and programs are often child-friendly policies, such as paid family leave and caregiver tax credits.' If it becomes law, all political parties should educate candidates of their ability to use campaign funds for family care, Simon said. 'They need to get out and tell their candidates that this is available to them, because this bill has flown under the radar, ' he said. 'They need to say, 'This is available to you, and the more candidates we have, the better choices we can make.'' The bill follows advisory opinions from the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission that candidates should be allowed to use campaign funds to care for children and other dependent family members. But Anthony Baldomero, the Campaign Spending Commission's associate director, told the Star-Advertiser that the commission's advisory opinions were focused only on the issue of whether campaign funds could be used for family care—and unrelated to goals by organizations that want to encourage family-oriented and female candidates, such as the Honolulu County Committee on the Status of Women. The committee supports SB 1202 and wants more female candidates in office to represent the concerns of women in Hawaii, Vice Chair Caroline Kunitake told the Star-Advertiser. 'Running for office is a job, and we need more people who represent the community, ' she said. Women often shoulder the responsibility for family care, so allowing them to pay for it through campaign funds would help them—without using any public funds, Kunitake said. Camron Hurt was a single dad who used to teach special education at Kalakaua Intermediate Middle School while his son, now 24, attended Washington Middle School. If he had been running for office, Hurt said it would have been difficult for him to campaign and serve without child care support and the ability to pay for it. 'I can't imagine being a candidate while doing child care, ' Hurt told the Star-Advertiser. He now works as program director for Common Cause Hawaii, which supports SB 1202. SB 1202 would encourage 'a diverse pool ' of family-oriented candidates, Hurt said. 'We want to encourage family, ' he said. 'We don't want our elected leaders to choose between family or candidacy.' This year, at least 14 out of the state House's 51 members are raising children in elementary school or are still too young for school. Several brought their children with them to work at the state Capitol over spring break, when they joined their parents in committee hearings or drew and played games in their parents' Capitol offices. Several of the House parents told the Star-Advertiser at the time that they often rely on one another for emergency child care or parenting support through a text chain they call 'The Capitol Kids.' It's now the 13th legislative session for House Minority Caucus Leader Lauren Ma tsu moto (R, Mililani-Waipio Acres-Mililani Mauka ), who said her children—7-year-old first grader Noah and 5-year-old preschooler Noelle—have known Matsumoto only as both a mom and as a state legislator, she told the Star-Advertiser over spring break. But Matsumoto also makes time each week to coach her children's jiujitsu, soccer and jump rope club practices Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, followed by games on Saturdays.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Idaho governor approves increase in state public defense budget
Idaho State Public Defender Eric Fredericksen photographed in Boise on November 15, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a bill on Friday approving a budget increase for the state's new Office of the State Public Defender. The office was established in October to consolidate the public defense offices in all 44 counties into a new statewide agency. The agency was appropriated $52 million in its first year to cover the remaining nine months of the fiscal year, but it has since faced budget shortfalls. Senate Bill 1202 addresses those shortfalls, adding $6.7 million in supplemental funding to the 2025 fiscal year budget to pay for transcript costs, additional personnel and contracting costs and funding for Child Protective Act appropriations. It also enhances the 2026 fiscal year budget to $83.2 million. In a blog post on Tuesday, the Office of the State Public Defender thanked the governor, his staff and bill sponsors, Reps. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello; Jon Weber, R-Rexburg; and Sens. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls; and Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, for supporting a budget increase. The approved 2026 budget is $5 million less than the amount the governor first proposed after negotiations within the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. That's largely because rather than raising the hourly rate for contract attorneys from $100 to $150 — as the governor proposed — the Legislature settled on raising it to $125 per hour. Idaho public defender's proposed budget seeks increases to address defense in rural counties Of the 39,000 cases the agency has had to cover since it began operation, 9,300 of the cases require a contract attorney. The raise is meant to improve public defense coverage in Idaho's rural counties, which largely rely on contract attorneys. Likewise, the budget is raising the rate for contracted investigators, who help contract attorneys, from $65 to $85 per hour. Attorney shortages remains the agency's biggest challenge, agency spokesman Patrick Orr told the Sun. The budget appropriation seeks to address that challenge, by adding $6.4 million in merit-based salary increases, increasing pay for attorneys handling complex litigation and making wages competitive with similar agencies like the Idaho Office of the Attorney General. After the agency took over Idaho public defense, the agency changed its pay structure based on an attorney's length of service. This led several experienced attorneys in Idaho's more populated regions to resign after receiving pay cuts ranging from $5,000 to $40,000, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. 'We need more attorneys,' Orr said. 'That's why we are so thankful for the support from the governor's office and the Legislature. We're confident our new salary matrix and increased hourly rate for contract attorneys makes us competitive. Public defense is one of those vitally important jobs in society where you have to find the right people to do the work. Public defense is not an easy job. It's hard. But it matters.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Idaho House passes budget for new statewide public defense system
Idaho State Capitol building on January 11, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho House of Representatives approved more than $32 million in additional funding for the new statewide public defense system on Tuesday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. The funding was included in Senate Bill 1202, which includes budget enhancements for the fiscal year 2026 budget for the Idaho Public Defender's Office and supplemental funding for the current fiscal year 2025 budget. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Over the last two years, the Idaho Legislature's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has been setting budgets differently by breaking the budgets into two pieces. The first piece is called a maintenance of operations budget. The maintenance budget represents a bare-bones version of the previous year's budget with all of the one-time funding and new funding requests stripped out. The maintenance budget is simply intended to keep the lights on for state agencies. The maintenance budget for the Idaho Public Defender's Office was included in an earlier bill, Senate Bill 1109, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law March 18. The second piece of the budget is referred to as budget enhancements, or the enhanced budget. Budget enhancements include new funding requests or requests for additional staff positions. The budget enhancements for the Idaho Public Defender's Office were included in Senate Bill 1202, which the Idaho House took up Tuesday. Combined with the maintenance budget, the budget enhancements bring total funding for fiscal year 2026 for the Idaho Public Defender's Office to $83.2 million. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, cut about $5 million from Gov. Brad Little's $88.6 million funding request. One of the differences between Little's budget request and Senate Bill 1202 has to do with funding for personnel costs. Little sought to increase the rate for contracted attorneys from $100 per hour to $150 per hour. Senate Bill 1202 sets that rate at $125 per hour. In October, Idaho transitioned from paying counties for public defense to a single, statewide system, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. The transition to a new statewide system came following a 2015 ACLU of Idaho lawsuit alleging Idaho's previous county-run public defense system violated low-income Idahoans' Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel. Although the transition to a new statewide system is designed to address many of the concerns with the old system, the Sun has reported the process of moving from 44 different county systems to one statewide system has been rocky and troublesome. Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, acknowledged frustrations with the transition, but said the new funding in the budget is necessary to help get the statewide system up, running and staffed to ensure Idahoans' right to legal representation is honored. 'We have over 1,200 cases without an assigned attorney today, and we still have an obligation to correct and fix this problem and make sure we're not leaving clients without that representation,' Manwaring said. After a 25-minute debate, the Idaho House voted 51-19 to pass Senate Bill 1202. The day before, the Idaho Senate voted 23-12 to pass Senate Bill 1202. Having passed both legislative chambers, Senate Bill 1202 heads next to Gov. Brad Little's desk for final consideration. Once the budget bill reaches his desk, Little will have five days to sign it into law or veto it, otherwise it will become law without his signature. Even though the Idaho House passed the public defense budget Tuesday, the House killed two other budgets. On Tuesday morning the Idaho House killed Senate Bill 1192, the budget enhancements for the Idaho State Liquor Division. That budget included new funding for shrink wrap that is required under the state's new freight contract. In addition, the Idaho House on Tuesday also killed Senate Bill 1193, the budget enhancements for the Office of Information Technology Services. Senate Bill 1193 included $11.1 million in additional funding for new office space, security enhancements, emergency connectivity network enhancements, IT infrastructure investments, software and IT personnel transfers. The Idaho House was not alone in killing budgets. On Monday, the Idaho Senate killed House Bill 450, the budget enhancements for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. House Bill 450 included $800,000 in money from a settlement agreement with Idaho Power to help pay for restoration of wildlife habitat burned in the Valley Fire in the Boise foothills in October. Any of the budgets that were killed may still be rewritten before the Idaho Legislature adjourns for the year. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
