Idaho’s Otter Must Be On Drugs
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Can we get our governor drug tested? Our legislature has one week left in session, is it possible for them to quickly introduce and pass a bill requiring weekly urinalysis of our Governor?
Why do I suspect Governor Butch Otter is on drugs? How else do you explain Idaho’s governor vetoing an uber-popular drug treatment program passed unanimously by both legislative chambers? How else do you explain Otter’s failure to signal key legislators that he might have a problem with the project’s cost or proof of effectiveness?
Governor Otter first failed to discuss his disagreement with legislators. Is this man so inaccessible to legislators that he had no opportunity to talk about it one time before the legislature passed it unanimously? They have been in session for a few months now, and these bills were part of a trend for the past few years.
Governor Otter said he felt the money was too much, twice what it was supposed to have been. However, as I understand it the legislature approved the path to these spending increases last year, and they signaled the direction they wanted to go in several bills. Why didn’t Butch Otter signal disagreement prior to this?
Governor Otter said the program has not proved its effectiveness yet, but then I read in various places that Otter had not looked at the program’s information. For example, one estimate is that Idaho saves about $11,000 a year on every person in drug treatment rather than in prison. The state issued the data Otter demanded just after he said it was one reason he vetoed the bill. Sounds like someone needs to take the Otter out for a walk more often.
Finally, it is completely illogical to veto a bill which has been unanimously passed by both legislative chambers. You veto a bill that does not pass with 2/3 majority, because there is a fair chance the bill will not be passed again with more than 2/3 majority and override your veto. Butch Otter should not be this politically naive. Maybe he actually intended to veto the next bill in his stack? Governor Otter seems to have vetoed his last political relevancy this time.
Governor Otter indicated he would sign a similar bill with smaller costs, a laughable position given the previous unanimous vote. I disagree with our legislature on many things, but not on this “paradigm shift” from prisons to drug treatment. They have a perfect opportunity to stomp this Otter into the ground, and they should take it. I strongly encourage our legislature to not only double the funding for drug treatment, but triple the funding, and override Otter’s veto.
What do you think?
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Comments
Vote:
0 
0 The state encourages rapid growth but then will not fund the social, economic and health programs, and infrastructure, that growth creates. Including more drug addiction and drug-related crimes. Nor does the state pass legislation making developers pay for some of the above.
Cowboy Butch focused on info he has about drug programs not being successful and I imagine he is all puffed up thinking he knows more about drug rehab than anyone else. He does not look deeply at a lot of issues, in my opinion.
If the legislators really support the bill, they will override the veto.
Vote:
0 0 Several years ago the State of Idaho went away from direct delivery AND monitoring of substance abuse programs. They hired a middle man company to administer financial aid and access to substance abuse treatment. This has been a disaster for stakeholders all around. We are spending millions of dollars to administer a state substance abuse contract when Idaho Health and Welfare was doing just fine managing the matter. That is point #1….this idea of the middle man managing the contract makes no sense and takes away valuable monies toward service delivery.
Point #2: Outpatient treatment is based on a treatment model for pro-social folks who actively seek out treatment for themselves. Additionally, the model of outpatient treatment is not as useful in combating methamphetamine use vs. say alcohol or marijuana abuse. Methamphetamine requires a longer period of treatment….and usually inpatient in a secure setting. Idaho doesn’t have this option unless someone is placed in the 9 month TEAM program at the South Idaho Correctional Center or State Prison at Orofino. With a treatment model that does not address the overwhelming anti-social population dynamics and the main drug of choice-meth, you don’t see good results.
The typical response…even by Republicans, pour more money into this hole and see if it fixes itself. I will give Otter credit that he is going to face an over-ride and probably lose. His approach is only half correct. Instead of explaining data isn’t showing results….which he is correct on for some of the reasons I cited above, he should not only explain the above and return oversight of substance abuse funding monitoring and access to Health & Welfare…thereby saving valuable monies for direct service delivery, but he should propose changes in the substance abuse contract that will address the direct needs of stakeholders involved. He would get more support and avoid pouring money into the black hole.
Vote:
0 0 One thing I’ve discovered by accident is that the public is willing to pay for a service, but the public is not so willing to pay for more bureaucrats who will administer the service.
So, the personnel budgets of the state agencies are fixed and the number of employees is closely monitored by the legislature. In order to get some services delivered, the state has to contract them out, bypassing the personnel budget.
It’s weird, it’s not so efficient as it sounds, (putting the services into the hands of private industry) and it is basically an end run around the idea of having fewer state employees.
Vote:
0 0 The cost savings over prison are probably more then 11,000 per year. Spending money on drug rehab makes more sense.
Vote:
0 0 Nemesis, the point I was trying to make was that Health & Welfare personnel were monitoring and interfacing with local treatment providers. I knew several of these folks and they could not understand why Governor Batt yanked them off their detail. There were no problems in the service delivery. In fact, these personnel were intimately aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their treatment providers because they worked in their respective regions throughout the state. The present Compcare agency that administers the contract does not have this same familiarity.
One of the main points that came out later which led to this switch was the fact that many treatment providers did not like the oversight Health & Welfare was providing….in this case, they were doing TOO MUCH, i.e. holding treatment providers accountable for staff to patient ratios and monitoring content of the programs. If a certain provider tried to pack the room with more patients than allowable staff they got in trouble. Additionally, when treatment providers tried to show Hollywood type movies about drug use as a means to bill for services, they also got in trouble. Many providers didn’t like this. They supported the middle man contract administrator because on-site visits were non-existent and Compcare was out of state too. It was and is an excellent arrangement for them to conduct business as usual. Ironically, these are some of the reasons that the governor cites that outpatient treatment is not working very well–at least from a cost perspective that is. If people are not successful in treatment and end up getting jailed, society gets the double whammy bill of having tried treatment (and failing) and then having to incarcerate.
I know several treatment providers around Idaho Falls that do good jobs with their program content, staff to patient ratios, and their communication with Courts and probation. There are several other providers that run a multitude of services so they can bill Medicaid. One got shut down for fraud. Another got shut out of providing treatment by the Trial Court Administrator. Another agency failed to use the cognitive behavioral therapy they were supposed to and used the Alcoholics Anonymous model for “treatment”. AA is not treatment, it is self-help. Yet, many providers use it as a treatment modality and have no problem billing the state for services.
Compcare also does the financial screenings for potential participants. By the State Contract, they are to determine the level of payment the patient is responsible to pay between 5 to 95% of the costs. Would it supprise most people to learn most folks get screened at only having to pay 5% of the costs? Why? Because compcare does phone screenings only. Remember, they are out of state. They do not seek out or require documentation or collateral contacts to prove income levels. Most patients blatantly lie about their income to pay the least amount they have to. As anyone can surmise, the effectiveness of treatment is compromised when a person is not fully financially vested. This means the more you pay into a program, the more you internalize what is being taught. If it is basically free and you only pay a few dollars per session you don’t pay as much attention! This also places more cost burden on the state and inevitably reduces the numbers of persons that can be served under the contract.
In sum, Otter would be right on the money if he gutted Compcare and returned the responsibilities of the contract to local Health & Welfare oversight. He would save more money and keep more control over both financial and program content. I think Otter is making only part of the argument he needs to. However, unless he guts Compcare the State will lose, program participants will lose, and you and I will lose as well in the form of more persons incarcerated and killed due to drug abuse and crime.
Vote:
0 0 Mike, apparently in your situation the contracted services aren’t working, for various reasons. I’m thinking your concerns should be passed along to a legislator, otherwise we’ll end up with status quo or more so when the contract is up for renewal.
And unless they can pass the budget back into H&W and allow for some of it to be personnel, I’m sure you’ll always have contracted services in this area.
I don’t know what you do for a living, but maybe you could form an independent company and bid for these services yourself at the next request for proposal?
Vote:
0 0 I sent e-mails to Sen. Davis and Governor Otter on Saturday. The personnel that were monitoring the contract still work at Health & Welfare. The funny thing is that it wouldn’t take much money to have them resume their duties. This is another classic case of the government pouring money at a problem when it doesn’t have to.
Vote:
0 0 So I read that the legislature overrode only part of Otter’s veto on Wednesday, 30-5. They overrode $2.4 million, and are debating if and how they will override the remaining what $10-12 million?
What’s going on?!?! The legislature passed these unanimously in both chambers. Now the small part only passes 30-5. Who are these 5 people? I read on one news site that the five people all agreed with the funding, one said his own son would have been helped by it, and yet they didn’t really give a reason for their vote change.
Why the vote changes? Why the stumbling in overriding the majority funding? Are we seeing the effects of party partisanship here? Is the Republican party wielding undue influence here? Who’s ego got bruised here?
What’s worse, an erratic governor who fails leadership duties in communicating his disagreements with a bill, or a weak-kneed legislature who drop their convictions when the party boss knocks? Looks like Idaho gets the worst of both worlds. What are they smoking in the capitol these days?
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Vote:
If the facts are as you state, then I agree, something doesn’t smell right.
As far as mandatory urinalysis, that’s a concept that us libertarians don’t quite agree with.
But I can sure understand the desire, given the weird things we’re seeing.
I’m sure hoping the legislature takes him to task for this one.