Idaho Gov.
Brad Little announced Friday that the state will use federal stimulus dollars to pay one-time bonuses for Idahoans to return to work.
Was confirmed the United UnitedStates.
We preparing Idaho torespond.
There are many aremany unknowns and to a extentthere's still are whencommunity spread spread wasconfirmed in multiple parts ofIdaho in in March, people arecontracting coro a virus and wedidn't know the source of thetransmission in theircommunity.
Areli relied onscience to put measures inplace to to abruptly show thespread of this unwelcomedisease across our state.
TheAction alternative would beencatastrophic our collectiveefforts worked and continue andcontinue to Idaho Owens havedone a job protectingthemselves and their by the endof April We saw a consistentleveling off of new cases whilemany businesses remained openand continue to operate othershad to curtail operations dueto due to the leaving thousandsout of work.
Out of work,Idahoans filed more than - 5000claims for unemploymentbenefits during the 11 weeksCovid- the the Cove 19 state ofemergency decoration, almosttwo and a half the total numberof claims filed in all of.2019.
My heart goes out to allthose who lost This globalglobal pandemic despite the weare are better off Idaho thanelsewhere.
Idaho was one of oneof the last with a confirmedcase and one of the firstStates with a concrete plan inplace to open the economy, andresponsibly in stages today,nearly all businesses can opentheir open their Idahoansgetting safely.
More than 60percent Americans who are outof work because of the pandemicearn more with enhancedunemployment benefits than theydo from their normal wages.This is not a a bad but it maysome hesitancy to go back towork.
Now is the time for us toprovide Idahoans with a aincentive to return to work andensure our economic rebound isand and to accomplish.
We'reproviding 100 million dollarsfor Idahoans as return to workbonuses.
We're working with theIdaho Workforce DevelopmentCouncil on to make federalrelief dollars available.
ToIdaho Idaho for unemploymentbenefits since as a return towork bonus.
One time return towork bonuses will be providedto the upon return to theworkplace.
Under our our 15 -hundred - dollar cash bonuseswill to those working full-timeand part-time workers willreceive a $750 cash cash afterreturn to work informationinformation on and how how toapply will finalized finalizedby the Workforce DevelopmentCouncil in Corona, Virus,Financial Advisory Committeeand At rebound dot Idaho dotGov by June fifteenth I thankIdahoans for their theirdetermination during difficultand uncertain time.
I'mconfident rebound more quicklythan many other States.
We havebeen through challenges beforeand and we have come strongwith with that.
I'm glad totake your questions on thisissue.Listen is gonna be a prioritygiven to those who had to waita long time or still haven'treceived their unemployment butthey'll get both and and and ofcourse even delayed to some ofthose payments are they willThey will receive this thisbonus they're amount dependingupon whether it's UI or or thePUA.
So get both but there'sgonna.
No, this is a first comefirst serve program.
Basicallyto have an incentive for boththe employers and employees toput people back to work.Yes this question from ScottLogan is the call Centergetting less overwhelmed.
Youhave any additional staff youdeserve I I believe I haven'tvisited this morning but wehave given seriousconsideration to ramping up thenumber of people in Centerlimiting factor is in thiscomplicated claims and there'splenty of them in thiscomplicated claims the callCenter can handle.
But thensome of it has to go to peoplethat understand the about thestate state and the and the theold federal plan in federalplan.
So that's kind of ourthat if we if we don't hit thatwe will put on more people in acall Center.
John from thetoday, there was a report outabout jobs and increase in andmaybe a sign that the economy'srecovering and what are youhearing about?
It's varied.butyou know you drive down theStreet Street and you you knowwe need need help help wantedsigns so it's it's veryobviously the construction,particularly the residentialconstruction business all overthe state is going going wellas has been the case from theget get go on anybody relatedto the hospitality industry inany way, shape or travelhotels.
Bars any of those arewhere there's issues even asfully opened as we are there'ssome of people to to go back toSo it's very manufacturing jobsare coming back things lookgood from that aspect but untilpeople have more confidence thehospitality industry's gonnacontinue to be challenged.
Overthe last few weeks, We've gotgot questions about thephysical Department Departmentof Labor that are in some somecommunities.
Is there a planabout getting those opened upto kinda help some of thesepeople that are trying to getin and figure figure outissues?
Well, Well, we in amatter of matter of fact, Ithink we're second or or thirdin the with the percent of ofour.
Claims that are handledonline and basically all thoseoffices are the ones that wehave.
Previously or a placewhere go down and get online sothere are there aren't theresources and the and skill setthey're particularly thesecomplicated cases, which is iswhat starting to get to.
We'restarting to to get more genericcases out of the of the way,but the backlog in is morecomplicated cases or we have todo verification in someinstances back or fiveemployees.
Employers to do todo the verification by law.Yes, so there's aboutA hundred and 50 million that'smore than.You you'd you do do good math.you think is gonna be enoughfor what we anticipate it won'tbe enough, but we're puttingthis out as bait to get get theeconomy going we we you know wesaid, it's gonna be availableall the time you you know and Ican let Alex talk about ourincentives.
We want people ifthey come to a fork in the roadand it's shall I I start weekor so I start in two monthsthis.
This runs out actually wehope it does.
We hope everybodygoes back back to we want thatincentive there and the we putit at the the slower peoplewill go back to work that Alexyou wanna you know.
Thank youso to question how many manyIdahoans would be served.
It'sgonna depend on how many comeback full time versus part parttime since there's tieredgrants.
We that this wouldserve around 70000 Idahoans andcertainly one of the thingswe're looking at is how howmuch will be left over unusedfrom the small business grantsand depending much I'm forthose we might be able tosupplement this to a largeextent to all Idahoans whomight be eligible.I have a problem withcriminals.Issue with our with our systemslow is all confirmation wehave to do to prevent fraud.
Itbreaks my heart about thesepeople that are not gettingtheir benefits, there's theseprotocols for me the federalgovernment or law that we thatwe have to go I'm sure cleverpeople are probably probablyget into the system and and andsome of it.
Not necessarily allall nefarious some of it claimswere filled out wrong andthat's what we're trying to getthrough but to my knowledge.
Onon a magnitude basis, we don'thave a lot of cases that havebeen flagged as being fromfraudulent people.They are concernedespecially that $600 ofunemployment that the federalgovernment has contributed totheir people they stay homebecause they're maybe more isyour plan and related to thatand and you have you seen anysimilar program other no-I.Don't we haven't we haven'tseen any from other States.Have Alex that's you know.
Itwas in the the the FinancialAdvisory Committee reboundsCommittee.
It the input we werewere getting from The input Iwas getting from legislatorsbusinesses from other peoplethat of compensation was was sohigh that you know peoplepeople would just it wasn'tthat they were.
Saying theywouldn't go back to work.
Itwas just big incentive for himnot him not to go back to thatthe 600.
Add-on terminateseither the 20 fifth of July orthe end of July July 30, -firstJuly 30 -first, So we'reputting this in to try andincentivize to say both theemployer and the employee tosay let's get back to work andthat's that is that is part ofthe motivation for us to dothat Is retroactive for folksthat yes But what have you beenhearing from the businessesbecause obviously that's a bigchallenge for them as they tryto get up and running again.you you know this issue so haveyou.
I we've been here a a lotof and you know one of theissues is there's a riskpremium to employees going backto work.
So I I mean if if itit wasn't for the incentive,there's that there's that riskout there one of the thingswe've been doing for businessesis our PE.fulfillment just across Streetand we're we're current the hadthe claims we had for so youyou know part of or the problemwith the economy and andgetting business back to werepeople's comfort level enoughPE and inventory all thoseother So I think thecombination of of thisincentive the rebound grantsthe from the federal governmentand our Too many and all theseacronyms, but one of them themis a program for and the otherother one is is the the Masssanitizer and gloves, which isbeing out of the out of theDepartment of Administration.There's like people watching athome right now who waitednine 1011 weeks of unemploymentToru at the same time, it'sdifficult for for theDepartment of to go for arecord low record highemployment.
We call that thatthe people at home that thathave waited months aboutunemployment payments.
What'syour message to them as theycontinue to try and pay theirmortgage pay their bills andbuy groceries but believe me wetalked talked to a lot peopleand it is if I could A- one andhave it fixed.
We are Out tofronts, the the the first thingwe was start paying over time.the second thing second thingwe did was back formeremployees that had had thetechnical expertise in the theof unemployment.
There's almost80 different issues that someof these claims have to addressthat you know how it's filledout identifying your previousemployers fill in the form.about different issues so weput more overtime more phonemore people new people newpeople we have trained the newpeople the call Center and thenwe've also got outsideconsultants looking at what'swe're doing here and what'shappening in other States andwe can automate some of thesemore vanilla claims the mostcomplicated ones because of thelaws from the federalgovernment and the stategovernment really require.
Ahighly skilled claims person toaddress so we're looking atoption of somebody's gotanother one.
All we'll look atat understandably took time totrain everybody up and stackcall centers.
Do you Do youfeel like point?
The Departmentof Labor is running full force.We're running full forcequestion question is can webecause if I go go hire anotherpeople, I gotta take some ofthe people are now handlingclaims and put them in.Training other so that's partof the issue.
We think we'vebalance balance unpleasantlysurprised the report I got wasthat the call Center has beenable to handle quite a few offew of these claims before theyhave have to refer to thoseother ones and I'm saying wellif they do that as they gettrained the call Center Centerpeople get we can maybe ramp upCenter or more.
So we're we'relooking at at all the let'sfollow that.
Crowningachievement your first year wasremoving barriers for businesswhen it came to government Redwas there too much Red tape inthe the system the people oflike to file for unemploymentin the first place, place, andthere why not scramble the wayyou did last year to removethat Red tape well if it's inrules, we can do it.
If it's alaw we have.
We've got a biggerissue.
Probably two aspects ofit.
One of them is is thePrevious employment andverifying that that previousemployment history and we'velooked at that we've had theattorney general look at at itthat's that's one of the thebig issues we've we've if Icould do a regulatory we'd bedoing it right right now butthese are statutory and we'velooked at them and they'repretty complex and unwinding isone of the things that I didn'twanna do and all the rulessaying I didn't want to remindthe legislative intent Thelegislative intent is that wehave a very low level of fraudI got.
And one of my notes fromone of the other other they'veand but it's a good one if Ican remember it, it, I will butthe issue is for years We builda system.
To slow and createincentives for people to notfile for unemployment to work.Now, we've flipped the switchnow we're trying to get thismoney out and and we've gotthat system.
That's kindaslowing us down and this is aquote I've got from somebodymaybe it was one of thegovernor's and that's theproblem at all.
Some of theStates have implemented sometechnology that we don't havehere in Idaho that default whenyou're filling out the youranswer some some of the as Isaid earlier, we're one of thetop States in but we couldn'tfile and then all of a suddenthese issues pop up and and wedon't have a very we have agood automated system toaddress those complaints andthat's what's slowing down thesystem.Aboutto is about which Johnabout Michael Dean has storytoday.
It was a good one, sothe downtown bars closed upearly Saturday because theyseem going through but theinside of people waiting forJust up and they didn't feellike they should should wow I II that's part of theOf from CDC about opening wewanted to maintain I don't knowwhere I didn't bring my prop IEmily but that health carecapacity want to to maintainthat health capacity and and weopened up at once we're worriedabout about but that story wasa good one cuz I I talked aboutthe that there's some peerbetween bars and customers.
Todo thing that's gonna continueas we go on in particular, wehave have better testing andbetter to where if some eventhappens and we have more casesand the public the businesses,the employees will all knowabout it and that the point wasthey had scattered out bar butthe waiting room to get in wasthe place where there was whereit was physical Dist scene wasalmost impossible that's the.Point and that's what I'm gonnaneed your help as we we goforward, the in making thatpoint to patrons employees andabout the right thing to do tocontinue to protect our that weall made during this last eightor or nine weeks that goodprogress made will be be lostwe have a Super spreader event.How yesterday I was out of the.And Quinns like last yearpeople very very closetogether, you know what Johnsome of the empirical evidenceof Memorial Day weekend.
Isthat there were a lot horrorstories about Memorial Dayweekend weekend fact thatalmost all closer activitiesoutside and we haven't seen aspike in number goes back towhat doctor Hann and Bridgestold my own.
Working Groupearly is that there's everythat this Corona virus is verysusceptible to UV light and sooutside outside I I was alwayspuzzled by States that had hadsunbathing band where peopleare are out by in the Sun andwhy that was such a problem.
Imean unless you're rightsomebody that perhaps maybe oneof the safest places you be andbe and we're seeing empiricalevidence as we see places.
Highpeople and no spread, it'sbecause they're outside.there's good ventilation andand and that light and light,and I think we're that onplaygrounds.
The issue and isgonna be less if it's in thebut you you wanna worry aboutthe bathrooms and some of thoseother areas cuz there's there'svery evidence.
We were one oneof the first to to go out andUV light we use in the foodprocessing industry and Andmodify for air particularly inlong-term care facilities.Governor while we're here, Iwanted to ask you about theactivation.DC mayor has said that she.Troopsin her her andunderstanding that they'regoing for a federal property inthe National How do you youreconcile that that's above mypay The National Guard Bureauwe've still got guards here,the National Guard Bureau as isoften the case and whatever theis asked if we had some Ichecked talked to general gara.I've I just you know your yourwhat's recommendation?
It isthese these people are ready togo.
To you know these are ofthe the people that you knowwe've been been talking aboutfor what are the other uses wecan have.
That wasn't the caseyesterday when we got the callfrom from the Guard so but asas the guard seemed like it wasa and had no problem fillingfilling those spots that tellus about Idaho got home andthat's a very good They thefact that.
Almost instantly wehad that big of a contingentthat was ready to go and notthat I anything againstWashington DC, but that theywere ready and willing to go ona voluntary basis and I justspeaks to not only the guardbut Idahoans also so God'sspeed.
I hope they stay safeand they're my understanding isthese guardsmen and women women will beembedded a Park.
Police otherpolice other they won't be outon their on their own.
They'llbasically back back up like theguard is often used, but theydid that they didn't ask totake any of of our tanks.
Yeah,it's almost like they'rethey're bringing them on tokinda give the guards out therekind of afraid.
Some of thesesome of these areas just hadyou know a lot of activity andand everything everything youduring this pandemic has afriction cost cost in it, youknow spacing all those thingsyou do do so and there's Ithink I read a couple ofreports this morning about ourupcoming fire season.
It's thesame firefighting we had alittle talk about that.
Boardis are we prepared for a wholedifferent regime forfirefighting?I was on the protests acrossthe nation, but here in Idahoyou know, especially knowingthat I don't know consistentlyhas been in the top 10 States.Well, I I mean I the the peoplethat attended the organizersobviously obviously the capitalthe staff here at the CapitolMall.
Our Idaho police and theBoise police I conversationswith with mayor it wasexemplary there were there wasa lot lot of there.
At certaintimes and I'm very proud ofhim, but I think the tone wasset when they they had that byall the Idahoans that showedshowed up there the theirconcern about the about Georgedeath and the and the and thatpart of it and and that set setthe tone for a much morerational discussion about theentire issue of of A policeissues I would add you saidabout the number of in the thetraining that our public safetyofficers go through todaycompared to the training thatwas a generation ago.
Is payingoff in spades now because theyjust they are really able to aa a with great great finesseand What would you say to thearm?Well, I mean the the the netthe of the activity from bothsides was was the the factpeople have a right to regress.They have the right of freespeech they they have all thoserights to travel and think thenet net of it I think people Iknow people did the right andIdaho so one more question justto when the Guard comes downwith their directive like that,do you have any.
Authority, oryou need to check and know thatit was it was my call that somesome States I think we were the12 some some States send butsome States you know had guarddeployed in a lot of otherareas.
You know our guard wassupposed to be in right now sothey were queued up to go toEurope so they were around andavailable.
So it's the you knowwhen the the guard Bureau callsup for another state calls upthe governor's the ultimate.People who make make thedecisions so I decided to tosend our regards the I wasasked by the National GuardBureau and and and seniors havewith the guards said it was agood thing to do one morequestion.
I'm.
Just a number inthe last week.
We've had somenumber of days and we've beenseeing the past as we had phasethere any concerns aboutgetting the the benchmarks.we'll I mean we we put thosebenchmarks in for a reason.
Themost critical.
All thedifferent benchmarks is our ourICU hospital capacity and andit is still if you have thoseother numbers that are thecriteria, you know you run outof you you have a big big spikein it's it's really regionalrecently.
It's it's been itstarted in the Wood RiverValley flow down to Twin Fallsteam over here now, it's justgoing up the Snake River.
Itseems like and a lot of it isjust people's awareness as someof these communities.
Theydidn't have lot of lot of whereit won't be here we're nowwe've got confirmed in almostall the counties but for surethe regions so okay, Keith lastquestion.
What about about thetwo questions on your first?get ready to go back to workand secondly when you talkabout the damage that occur tothe state.
I was.Ithink people are ready readyto go back to but as I've said,all along, there's not a.
Ahealth care Silo and an Silothat the confidence ofemployees.
Customers consumersand even people that that aregetting ready to play capitalneeds to be people to I knowthey're safe if we continuecontinue to manage and we arenot gonna this is not gonna beeliminated until there's eithera.
Treatment or most likely avaccine we have got to managethis and I think.
Think we'veshown we've shown that we areand we will continue to to dothat about tagging on theCapitol building and I was Iwas very sad about it.
I was itwas good our law enforcement.both both the security securityhere at the Capitol my Idahostate police and the Citypolice work and And, of course,from around the has been thisis unacceptable and it wasunacceptable but we we will getit taken care of everybody inIdaho whole building and wewanna take care of it and Iknow it wasthing and the thing and we willand and I mean even part of thepeople that are part part ofthat that was where I I heardmost of the outcry people thatI wanted wanted to show up andin a race that which is a alittle difficult sandstone.
Sowith that, Thank you all very
Governor Little's "back-to-work bonus" is met with mixed reaction from constituents.