A Federal Reserve economist today (Fri) said government-funded early childhood education programs are cost effective.

Rob Grunewald told a group in Spokane that, for every dollar spent on birth-through-kindergarten programs, governments avoid several dollars in future spending.

Grunewald told the story of a 1963 study in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in which 123 children from poor families were enrolled in a well-funded and well-staffed early learning program.

He says the study showed the children in the program, on average, earned higher grades than their peers. More graduated from high school fewer got into legal trouble. Years later, Grunewald says, the study’s authors found the children who attended that program had a higher average income and more owned homes and had savings accounts than their peers outside the program.

“So if we add up all of these benefits, relative to the costs, the return is 17 dollars for every dollar invested in this 40-year study.”

Grunewald says studies in several other cities mirror those results.

The lesson? Adequately funded child care and early childhood programs, whether private or public, are worth the money.

Grunewald says the Federal Reserve office in Minneapolis, where he works, has developed public policy options. One calls for creating endowments to provide steady financing opportunities for early childhood programs. How large should the endowment be? In Minnesota…

“We came to the conclusion that it was two sports stadiums,” Grunewald said to laughing from the crowd.

Spokane community leaders say Grunewald’s speech starts their work to develop a strategy to provide good preschool education for all children in Spokane County.

by Steve Jackson

Not since 1994 has a Democrat held Washington’s 5^th Congressional District seat that covers Spokane and much of eastern Washington. But Okanogan farmer Peter Goldmark thinks he can break the GOP stranglehold by challenging first term Republican Representative Cathy McMorris.

Peter Goldmark has a varied background. He was a member of the Washington State University Board of Regents for ten years, the director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture for a brief spell in 1993, is a member of his local school board, has a PhD in molecular biology and is a noted wheat researcher.

Goldmark says a major issue facing the region is the decline in the farm economy. He says he would try to land a seat on the House Agriculture committee, and get increased funding for programs supporting the states’ wheat farmers. He also believes a massive investment in biofuels production nationwide would be good for the farm economy.

Goldmark says he would work to improve the economy in the non-farm sector as well.

“And there’s some real opportunities in the Spokane area for economic development and increasing the amount of economic activity and on increasing the health sciences there, and my experience at WSU gives me some real knowledge on ways that could be brought about.”

Current congresswoman Cathy McMorris has chaired a series of hearings on the need to reform the Endangered Species Act, but Goldmark does not share the enthusiasm for such reform.

“ I think that may affect the bottom line of some big companies but I don’t think it’s the fundamental issue that is causing our communities to shrink and wage earners to need some economic return for their efforts,” says Goldmark.

On the topic of Iraq, Goldmark says the U.S. invaded the mid east nation under false pretenses. He says we must look for a way to transfer the responsibility of the conflict to the Iraqis:

“We’re going to have to face up to the fact we're going to have to leave there at some time and give them a date for that so they will have to behave responsibly so they get their act together both politically and responsibly so they take care of their country,” he says.

Other than Goldmark, no other Democratic candidates have announced for the Fifth Congressional seat.

By Doug Nadvornick, Spokane Public Radio

Idaho state senators today (Thurs) rejected a major property tax cut that would have changed the way the state’s schools are funded. The vote was 20-to-15.

Yesterday, the House debated and then approved the bill by a 44-26 margin. But the measure faced a tougher path through the Senate, which earlier this session had rejected a similar proposal.

The measure would have eliminated county property taxes that are earmarked for public schools, a 30-percent cut for the average homeowner. It called for the state to replace that money with a one-and-a-quarter percent increase in the state sales tax.

The bill’s supporters say their constituents, especially in areas that are experiencing rapid growth, are calling loudly for property tax relief.

Critics call it a tax shift that would move more of the burden of funding schools from property owners to poor and middle-income people who don’t own property, but who pay sales taxes. They also say because the sales tax is more volatile than the property tax school funding levels may fluctuate.

Even though senators rejected the bill, they’ll consider putting it to an advisory vote in November. That vote wouldn't be binding, but would be a way to measure public sentiment.

By John Vlahovich
Spokane Public Radio
The Spokane region Light Rail Steering Committee spent years studying how, when – even if – to build a regional light rail public transit system. Members made their choice from a host of possibilities. But the committee’s work may not yet be complete.
The regional task force considered everything from a full-blown double track electrified system between downtown Spokane and Liberty Lake to rail stopping at University Road in Spokane Valley, with special buses covering the rest of the route.
Directors of the Spokane Transit Authority, which would operate light rail, and the Spokane Regional Transportation Council that commissioned the light rail study in the first place got together to hear the committee’s recommendations. Steering Committee chair Phyllis Holmes summed up.
“We have come to a fork in the road where we say we’ve analyzed these options. Now it’s time to move forward with an implementation plan and a funding strategy plan,” said Holmes. “But it is impractical and unrealistic to do that for all of the alternatives”
The steering committee thinks the region should proceed with a $300-million start up single track light rail system from downtown Spokane through Spokane Valley to Liberty Lake. They suggest lower cost diesel units rather than electrically powered trains.
But Spokane Valley city councilman Rich Monson says area officials first must figure out how to pay for light rail before deciding to move forward. Otherwise, says Monson, the project will be an impossible sell.
Spokane city councilman Al French says knowing light rail’s cost and how to pay for it goes hand in hand with any decision to proceed – even if that decision is nothing more than right of way purchases and preliminary engineering.
A recent survey found local folks opposed to a local sales tax increase for light rail. It’s also questionable if Spokane could qualify for federal light rail money.

By John Vlahovich
Spokane Public Radio
Friends Of the Falls has started a fund raising campaign for its planned whitewater kayaking site located in the Spokane River gorge downstream from the new Sandifur footbridge.
The group is behind plans to turn the Spokane River gorge through Peaceful Valley into a park and recreation area. They’ve already been successful in getting 400-thousand dollars from the state legislature for this purpose.
Executive Director Steve Faust says Friends Of the Falls hopes to build the river whitewater park a year from now.
That will require adding rocks to the streambed. Lots and lots of rocks, says Faust.
“We will need about 2,000 cubic yards of, preferably rounded, granite boulders, about 4 to 6 feet in diameter,” says Faust. “In addition we will need about 500 cubic yards of smaller boulders, and we may be able to use basalt for some of the smaller rocks, in the one foot to two foot diameter range.”
Faust emphasizes the rocks aren’t to dam the river. Rather, they’ll create natural water drops and pools for kayakers to enjoy.
Steve Faust says Friends Of the Falls hopes to have pledges for the $220,000 still needed by the end of May, “…because we really need to start the permitting process, and the final design process for this project in the summer of this year if we want to have the project completed in 2007.”
The group’s master plan for the river gorge, including the whitewater park, can be found on the web at friendsofthefalls.org.

By John Vlahovich
Spokane Public Radio
Spokane’s Catholic Diocese and one of its major insurance carriers have agreed to settle their dispute over priest sex abuse victim coverage. The carriers will pay five and a quarter million dollars toward the 45 million dollar settlement with victims announced in February.
General Insurance Company of America, now part of Safeco, issued liability policies covering the local Catholic diocese between 1958 and 1972.
Diocesan bankruptcy attorney Shaun Cross says the $5-plus million that the insurance company will pay is a major step in the diocese’s emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It also ends their legal dispute in U.S. District Court.
But first the settlement has to be okayed by both the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the Eastern Washington Federal District Court. Cross says the diocese must show judges of both courts it and the victims have both agreed to a consensual settlement plan.
“And in order to have a consensual plan, we need to show at the time of confirmation that we have sufficient funds so that our plan is feasible,” says Cross, “that we can pay the proposed settlement that we have with the 75 victims, and any other settlements that we have with additional victims that have filed claims. When you receive $5 million here, $5 million there, as Everett Dirksen said, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
General Insurance will place $5.25 million in an interest-bearing bank account. Those funds will be released to the diocese in October 2007. That’s the same month in which the diocese has agreed to settle claims brought by 75 sex abuse victims.
Diocesan officials continue to negotiate settlements with five other insurance carriers. Last week those carriers failed to convince Federal District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush that they did not have a coverage obligation to the diocese.
There are additional sex abuse claimants in addition to the 75 victims offered the $45.7 million settlement by the diocese. The exact number of valid claims is still being determined.

By John Vlahovich
Spokane Public Radio
The average Internet surfer has no idea how many times his or her computer is under attack while on line. Quite a few people think those phony requests to update personal information actually come from a bank.
That’s what the AARP found from a recent survey of 800 Washington Internet users.
That request for updated personal information from PayPal certainly looked legitimate to Kennewick resident Judy Malloon. After all, she did have a PayPal account. So she filled in the request for ATM number and security code and emailed it back.
Within 24 hours, Malloon’s bank account had been completely drained.
Washington AARP state director Doug Shadel says Judy Malloon isn’t alone in trusting the emails she receives.
“A huge percentage of the people think that’s a legitimate thing,” says Shadel. “ So we asked the question, for example, do banks ever send you emails asking you to update personal information, and almost 50 percent were not aware of this, that this does not happen.”
AARP surveyed 800 Washington residents and found many web surfers are unaware of the latest online threats from computer hackers and cyber thieves. In fact most grossly underestimate how often hackers try to get into their computer files. For the record, Shadel says it’s an average of 300 times an hour.
“When we asked in our survey, how many times per hour you think your computer’s attacked, the average was about 20,” he says. “So people are grossly underestimating the threats to them when they’re on line.”
Shadel says part of the problem is that technology has gotten so sophisticated so fast; the average person hasn’t been able to keep up.
AARP announced its survey results in Spokane at the first of a number of cyber crime seminars it has scheduled statewide to raise awareness of dangers in cyberspace. A second Spokane session will be held April 12th.
People can pre-register on-line at aarp.org/wa.

By John Vlahovich
Spokane Public Radio
An ancient Chinese sporting tradition, also popular in a number of U.S. cities, is catching on in the Lilac City.
Demonstration Dragon Boat races on the Spokane River during last summer’s Sister Cities International Conference proved so successful that the Spokane Parks Foundation is creating a homegrown version.
The foundation board is calling the July 30th fund-raising festival “Paddle For Parks.” Races will take place on the river just upstream from the Division Street Bridge.
Dragon boats have been raced in China for thousands of years. Spokane’s festival coordinator Jenifer Priest says a dragon boat is 46 feet long.
“It’s paddled by 20 people, and we have a certified steerer – someone who is trained – that stands at the back of the boat and keeps it on course. A drummer sits at the front of the boat, facing the paddlers and pounds out the beat, so that the paddlers are synchronized,” says Priest
Priest says that in dragon boat racing teamwork trumps might.
“That is the key to winning a dragon boat race. It’s not how much muscle you have but how well your team can paddle in unison,” she says.
Phyllis Holmes, vice president of the sponsor Spokane Parks Foundation, says Spokane’s Dragon Boat Festival will serve two purposes.
“We are launching a major event that we hope will not only raise the visibility of the Foundation, but help to increase our capacity to help the Parks Department fulfill their mission while we fulfill our mission,” says Holmes
Dragon Boat team entry fees and corporate sponsorships will go to the Spokane Parks Foundation, a non-profit group that raises money for the city’s parks. Among its projects, the foundation has raised money for the current restoration of the historic Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens located on Spokane’s near south side.

By Doug Nadvornick, Spokane Public Radio

Idaho House members today approved a bill that changes the way the state pays for schools. The vote was 44-to-26. The proposal would shift funding for school maintenance funding from the property tax to the sales tax.

If it passes, property tax levels would be lowered, while the state sales tax would be increased by one and a quarter percent.

Supporters of the plan say they're responding to pressure from voters to stop the rapid increase in property tax bills.

House Speaker Bruce Newcomb says the bill will also help with another problem, funding school construction projects.

“If you give your constituents 30-percent property tax relief, and that would be the average number, and it will vary in every district, you give them 30-percent property tax relief, you have freed up their ability to pass school bonds.”

Democrats oppose the proposal. They say shifting school funding is a bad idea because the sales tax is less stable than the property tax. They say low-income residents will assume more of a burden of funding schools.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire today (Mon) signed into law a bill that essentially bans the use and sale of dishwasher detergents that contain phosphorus.

Spokane legislators aggressively pushed the bill this session as a tool their county would need to clean the Spokane River. The governor noted that at the bill-signing ceremony at Spokane’s downtown library.

“It’s easier and cheaper to keep phosphorus out of our dishwashing detergent than to remove it from the wastewater headed to our groundwater and to our streams,” Gregoire said.

The new law will lower the allowable limit for phosphorus in dishwashing detergents from the current eight-point-seven percent to a half-percent. It won’t take effect until 2008 and then only in Spokane, Clark and Whatcom Counties. The law will take effect statewide in 2010.

The governments and companies that discharge phosphorus-containing wastewater into the Spokane River are negotiating a cleanup agreement with state and federal regulators. County Commissioner Todd Mielke says all parties agree the dishwasher detergent limit is only a small piece of that, but an important piece.

“We as a community are going to invest tens of millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, in utilizing the most advanced technology anywhere in the United States as we look at our treatment plants and we look at everything else. But that alone won’t do it. And so we need to look at everything else that will help us reach that goal that will do the cleanup that we need to accomplish and this is one of the steps to get us there.”

The governor signed into law four other bills, including one that would change the composition of the county’s five-member air pollution control authority board. It would remove one county representative and replace him with one from the city of Spokane Valley.

By Doug Nadvornick, Spokane Public Radio

Spokane County elections officials today (Fri) sealed the fate of three close school levy losses.

Each of the three districts, Mead, West Valley and Central Valley, won one and lost one on March 14^th.

Voters in the Mead district approved an operations levy to supplement the district’s basic funding from the state. But the district fell just short with its technology levy. The measure won nearly 59-and-a-half percent of the vote…just short of the 60-percent needed.

Superintendent Al Swanson says the school board will meet Monday to review the results and decide whether to run the levy again this year. Swanson believes the board will decide to take the rest of the year to rethink the levy and reconnect with voters.

The Central Valley School Board will also meet Monday. It will talk about the failure of a 55-million dollar school facilities bond issue that won almost 57-percent of the vote. The measure would have financed two new schools and three major remodeling projects. District officials say the growth in the east end of the district and aging elementary schools make the project necessary. C-V voters did approve an operations levy.

In the West Valley district, voters approved a technology levy, but narrowly rejected the basic operations levy. District spokeswoman Sue Shields says the school board voted Wednesday to resubmit that levy to voters on May 16^th.

One day after Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed about 20 new laws to punish and keep track of sex offenders, Attorney General Rob McKenna was on the road to explain them. This morning (Tues) he was in Spokane Valley.

Among the new laws, the legislature added two crimes to the state’s “Two Strikes, You’re Out” list of sex crimes. It required the most dangerous sexual offenders to register with authorities every 90 days, rather than every year. And it increased the minimum penalties for possession of child pornography to a year-and-a-day, meaning offenders will serve their sentences in a state prison, rather than in a county jail.

McKenna focused on one particular bill, focused on keeping sexual offenders away from children in certain public places. He says the bill was inspired by the city parks director in Bellevue. The man asked McKenna what he could to do to keep a convicted pedophile from hanging around a swimming pool shower room. McKenna couldn’t offer much help.

“They had no legal basis to order them out of that facility if the public was generally was allowed in the facility.”

McKenna thought that was wrong, so he convinced the legislature to give the managers of public facilities where children spend time more power to remove people convicted of sex crimes.

“They can provide, are required to provide, a written demand if they wish to exclude that person,” he said. “The written order would say you cannot come into this facility at all or you cannot come in during the following hours. If the individual refuses to obey that demand, or violates it, then they can call the manager, the employee can call the police and the police can arrest the individual for the crime of trespass against a child.”

It’s a crime with a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a 10-thousand dollar fine.

Dan White from the Spokane Valley YMCA is glad to see the new law, even though he doesn’t expect to use it often.

“It has happened once in the couple years that I’ve been there. Fortunately we had a vigilant one of our members that was able to notify staff and we were able to follow up with that and exclude that person from visiting the Y. We just basically let them know that they weren’t welcome, but we really had no teeth behind it.”

McKenna calls the law the first of its kind in the U-S and one that’s bound to be emulated by other states.