state politics: idaho

Idaho Government Needs Uniform Conferencing Plan, JFAC Says

By Sharon Fisher, 2-22-08

The Idaho Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee rejected a recommendation by Governor Butch Otter this morning by turning down videoconferencing equipment for the Department of Environmental Quality, saying that the state should have an overall policy for obtaining and using videoconferencing equipment.

The current system of awarding and denying videoconferencing is “patchworking it together,” said JFAC Vice Chair Senator Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint.

Otter had recommended $100,000 in one-time funding for DEQ as a “Governor’s Initiative,” meaning it was something he was putting into the budget that the agency hadn’t asked for. Oddly, agencies that did ask for videoconferencing equipment – such as the Department of Corrections, which asked for $270,800 this year and had also requested it last year, and the Department of Commerce – did not receive recommendations from him.

The Department of Commerce requested videoconferencing equipment as part of a $441,000 technology upgrade request. JFAC has not yet voted on a budget for the agency.

The DEQ videoconferencing equipment would have been available for use by other agencies, and in fact charges paid by those other agencies would have paid for its ongoing costs, Director Toni Hardesty had said during the agency’s budget hearing.

Currently, the Idaho Transportation Department has a videoconferencing system, so when DEQ needs the functionality, “we have to have everyone drive over to ITD,” Hardesty said. “We need more options.”

DEQ, like ITD, is located some distance from the downtown Capitol area where many other state offices are located.

Agencies request videoconferencing to save money on travel, so meetings with people in other parts of the state, country, or even the world can be held more easily, the agencies say.

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