Budget woes will prompt Gov. Butch Otter to stay closer to home as he schedules “Capitol for a Day” visits to communities outside Boise in coming months.

Wayne Hammon, Otter’s budget director, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that budget cuts have prompted the need to economize on one of Otter’s favorite duties. “I have told him that he has to drive to several of these.” Otter’s last Capitol for a Day was in Horseshoe Bend last week.

The expansion and restoration of the Idaho Capitol building is “on time and on budget,” Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee Wednesday morning.

The project’s price tag is slightly more than $120 million, “some $10 million less than the original bonding authority,” Hartgen said.

Lt. Gov. Brad Little, who served as acting governor Monday when Gov. Butch Otter underwent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, said Tuesday that Otter is doing well.

"He starts physical rehab tomorrow. He's ready to go," Little said.

Little, a former state senator, joked with the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee about his new position as lieutenant governor.

"I don't know how much he trusts me to be governor or how sedated he is before I get to be governor," Little said. Earlier he joked, "They don’t trust me with the whole budget, you know I am the lieutenant governor."

Lt. Gov. Brad Little said Tuesday that local solutions and job creation is the best way to deal with the state’s economic crisis.

“We just flat need jobs. Unemployment is unacceptable,” Little told the Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee on Tuesday morning.

Little was before the committee to submit the budget for his office, but he was asked by Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, about what the state can do to alleviate the economic crisis.

Little said the solutions must be local.

Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise, introduced legislation Tuesday that would lower the threshold for reporting gifts from lobbyists to legislators. The current threshold is $75 per person per event as was made into law last year. Anything at that level or above must be reported by legislators.

Luker wants to reduce that amount to $35 per person per event.

"We receive a lot of helpful information from lobbyists. It's convenient to get that information at a lunch or dinner," Luker said. "But there's a line somewhere between convenience and favors."

In 1849, Abraham Lincoln turned down President Zachary Taylor's offer to be governor of Oregon Territory, which included what is now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Lincoln's wife, Mary, opposed the idea, according to Idaho's preeminent Lincoln fan, former attorney general and lieutenant governor Dave Leroy.

The Idaho Department of Correction’s goal for 2009 and coming years is “zero growth,” said Director Brent Reinke.

In fact, the state Correction budget is likely dropping. The department's original appropriation for the fiscal year was $196.8 million. After holdbacks, slashing of one-time funds and base reductions the estimated fiscal year 2010 base budget is estimated at $175.1 million, Reinke said.

Idaho’s prison population is also decreasing, Reinke told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee early Monday morning. Idaho’s prison population is 7,245.

Idaho Democratic Congressman Walt Minnick is putting together his own “sensible stimulus bill.”

His priorities: Highways and bridges, tax cuts for individuals and unemployment benefits.

“Strip everything else away,” Minnick said.

The $200 billion plan could create two-thirds of the jobs proposed in the current stimulus package at one-quarter of the cost, he said.

Minnick and his staff are working on the legislation’s final details. Look for more information next week.

Secretaries on treadmills and exercise bikes will help "to run the electric" at the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind, Superintendent Mary Dunne quipped before the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday morning.

"It's too bad we couldn't hook those electric wires up to us," JFAC Co-Chair Dean Cameron quipped back. "Including myself."

School officials were before JFAC on Monday detailing how they would make budget cuts for the next fiscal year.

Tom Luna, Idaho's state superintendent of public instruction, detailed $62 million cuts during his budget presentation to lawmakers Thursday. Luna also asked for $17 million from the Public Education Stabilization Fund to cover for the rest of the $80 million shortfall presented in Gov. Butch Otter's proposed budget.

Some lawmakers, however, think that the budget crunch is going to get worse and that education cuts could reach as much as $130 million.

Is Luna prepared to make further cuts above the $62 million he outlined Thursday?