Gov. Brad Little vetoed five bills – his first of the year – Wednesday evening, though many of them didn’t make the headlines during the legislative session.
House Bill 758 would have continued the legislature’s push to deregulate child care in Idaho by allowing providers to oversee more kids in some cases.
Under the bill, providers wouldn’t have had to factor their own children into staffing ratios as long as they were five years of age or older. Staff also wouldn’t have had to keep sleeping children within eyesight as long as there was live video and audio monitoring in place.
“In a fire or emergency evacuation, higher ratios and weaker safety requirements would prove catastrophic,” Little said in his veto letter.
He also said he worried the looser regulations could open a window to fraud, since the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare would need to craft new compliance protocols to determine which children count towards the staffing requirements.
Little also vetoed parts of two budget bills. House Bill 975 would’ve overridden a cap on one of Idaho’s reserve funds that transfers any additional money back to the general fund.
He wrote that money needs to be accessible in the general fund in case of expensive and unexpected events, like the upcoming wildfire season.
“Even though the legislature added some additional one-time funds to the account this year, it is very likely we will not have enough money in the Fire Suppression Fund to pay for this fire season, especially after such a warm and dry winter,” he wrote.
Part of House Bill 968 would’ve redirected $38.9 million from a special fund that covers an additional payroll period for state employees that occurs about every 11 years. Lawmakers wanted to use that money as a buffer in case current fiscal year revenues don’t meet projections.
The final two bills – House Bill 674 and Senate Bill 1359 – dealt with telecom service disconnections and cryptocurrency kiosk fraud, respectively.
Little said he didn’t want to give federal regulators more power over telecom systems in Idaho, nor did he think the safeguards for cryptocurrency kiosks would actually work under the proposal.
The governor still has until next week to act on several high-profile pieces of legislation, including a massive blow to teachers unions, Medicaid work requirements and making highway district elections partisan.
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