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Idaho Reports is here throughout the summer to bring you political analysis and in-depth reporting from across the state of Idaho.

The Legislature’s Federalism Committee met Thursday to review a pilot study on Idaho’s federal funding by payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT. An analysis commissioned by lawmakers found that, had federal lands in three test counties been deemed “recreational” and subject to property taxes, the counties could have generated more than $16 million in revenue, or nearly nine times what the federal government pays in PILT dollars.

FIRE INCIDENT UPDATES

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• PORN: Accusations from the Idaho Freedom Foundation regarding the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare distributing "porn literacy" sex education materials to Idaho school districts have garnered national attention, including from outlets like Fox News. KTVB looked into the IFF's report and the purchases in question, and the Inlander reached out to the foundation to learn about its materials used in Idaho.

• PRIDE: During the Boise Pride Festival last weekend, a half-hour program on the three-day-long festival schedule called “Drag Kids” prompted political pressure for sponsors to pull out and to cancel the performance (via the Associated Press).

• ELECTIONS: A rift in the national and Idaho Libertarian Party has cost the party its best-known candidate, Joe Evans of the 1st Congressional District, who has now been replaced by a first-time candidate from Post Falls (via the Idaho Press).

• LIQUOR: Idaho has a unique liquor licensing system where cities are only allowed to issue a certain amount of liquor licenses based on population, rather than issuing them to anyone who asks. The debate over how to resolve the issue has raged at the statehouse for years, only to sputter out several times (via BoiseDev).

• SCHOOLS: Out of 186 Idaho school districts and charters, 81 have now made the switch to a four-day school week. The number has more than doubled in the last 10 years from only 39 in the 2012-2013 school year (via Idaho Ed News).

• BUSINESS: Micron Technology held a symbolic groundbreaking event Monday on its campus in southeast Boise to celebrate a planned $15 billion in expansion for domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips at the site (via BoiseDev).

• JOBS: An estimated 7.8% to 10.5% of all Idaho adults were suffering from the aftereffects of COVID-19 infections this summer, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. A new report from the Brookings Institution suggests that long COVID is one of the drivers of the ongoing labor crisis (via the Idaho Capital Sun).

• ROADS: The Ada County Highway District has to wait until next year to get millions of dollars in state funds to support the extension of Highway 16 near Meridian due to an imprecisely written bill from the 2022 legislative session (via BoiseDev).

Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, the Friends of Idaho Public Television and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.