Idaho Legislature vs. Sheriffs: The Budget Crisis Draining Rural Idaho

00:00:00 Bob Neugebauer: Welcome once again to the Idaho Post. This is your host Tea Party, Bob. And today we’re going to have a very special guest with us. His name is Dylan Stocker and he is now Dylan. What is the company that you handle arms with?

00:00:19 Dylan Stocker: So my, uh, my business old arms of Idaho, the ambassadors

00:00:24 Bob Neugebauer: Okay.

00:00:25 Dylan Stocker: to America’s heritage. My friend.

00:00:27 Bob Neugebauer: And he has two of his own old arms on him himself. He doesn’t

00:00:30 Dylan Stocker: Yep.

00:00:30 Bob Neugebauer: have to have them on his side in any. In any case, uh, we’re going to be discussing, uh, the political arena in Idaho as the legislature is going to be, uh, wrapping up very shortly. And we want to see, uh, what’s really been going on down there and, uh, how they’ve been messing up as they usually do by not being real Republicans and not being real conservative. So Dylan, your First, let’s see what you have to say. Let’s start with the sheriff’s.

00:01:02 Dylan Stocker: Okay. Uh, absolutely. I feel like I can speak to the sheriffs because through the Great Idaho show, which is the great Idaho show. Com that is a platform that I did on radio that ultimately is all about Idaho and it’s unpaid, by the way, there’s no sponsorship. I receive zero dollars. So what you’re about to hear is my own self discovery. Early in my, um, start a little over a year ago, I made it my goal to talk to all forty four sheriffs in Idaho because truthfully, I think the sheriff is one of the most connected individual to all counties in Idaho about what’s really happening. They really know. So that being said, it’s been an interesting, uh, history, if you will, to where one of my very first conversations was with Sheriff Kieran Donoghue. Sheriff Kieran Donoghue is nationally famous for writing a letter to Trump. And getting the immigration bill signed. He was in the office for this. In my interview with him, he essentially was upset at the legislature last year, essentially expressing that the legislature has completely blocked the sheriff for years. I then next talked to Samuel Hulse. Samuel, host of Bonneville County, I believe, is Idaho’s second most populated county. Samuel Hulse had also expressed that the legislature of Idaho has essentially blackballed the sheriffs. They don’t talk to the sheriffs. Let’s fast forward to this last week. We’ve got a lot of talk of the sheriffs, Bob. We’re talking about House Bill six fifty nine not getting passed, uh, but attempted. And everybody in the state is like just signed the two eighty seven G.

00:03:03 Bob Neugebauer: So what is the purpose of this particular bill? Fifty

00:03:05 Dylan Stocker: The

00:03:06 Bob Neugebauer: nine.

00:03:06 Dylan Stocker: well. So first of all, let’s talk about two eighty seven G. Two eighty seven G is a federal program that sheriffs and police officers, police forces can participate in that essentially help Ice with immigration. There is a jail enforcement model. There is a warrant service model and there is a task force model. Whatever model these sheriffs and police forces choose, Ice will help train, but none of them fund it. So let’s mark one thing right now. This is about funding. This is about Idaho grossly misspending the budget. This is something that I relate to you very, very well with Bob because you do the work. And this is just an example of a symptom of the problem, Essentially, the Idaho Legislature just tried to pass it on to the sheriffs that not only are you responsible for the safety of every single individual in your county, and not just the safety, the constitutional application of everything jails, um, court services, everything. And we want you to be responsible for federal immigration too. Well, here’s the problem. Idaho state budget is fourteen point two billion dollars. As you know. Well, Bob and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say to all county budgets combined, all forty four have about an eight hundred million dollar budget to do everything that’s prosecutor, courts, clerk, employees, equipment, software, you name it. That is some about somewhere between an eighteen to a twenty to one ratio on spending. I don’t know about you, but when I think about government, I think about basic services. My roads, my fire department, my police, everything. Ada County has a three hundred and eighty nine million dollar budget. Out of that eight hundred million, if you go look at Canyon County, Bonneville County, and later they have well over sixty percent of what is left. And now we want all forty four other counties. The property tax payer to put a requirement on their sheriffs to go and do the hand of ice, and the state is forcing them to do so or trying. So I again, I have a lot to say, but I just got off a phone call with, um, I will let remain anonymous within the sheriff’s organization about some pretty, pretty wild stuff. Bob.

00:05:43 Bob Neugebauer: You know, when you take a look and I just did the homework on this. You have for the largest counties that take the biggest part of the sheriff’s budget, which is about two hundred million. And then the rest of it is divided up amongst the other forty. It’s a very small number. Total amount spent somewhere between four and five hundred million, depending on where you’re looking at it and how you’re looking at it.

00:06:12 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:06:13 Bob Neugebauer: But the problem lies in the fact that, uh, they can’t do the job that they’re expected to do on these kinds of funds. Yet at the same time, they’re contributing. Our state is contributing between three hundred and fifty and four hundred and fifty million dollars a year just for immigration. Immigrants themselves. And

00:06:41 Dylan Stocker: Power

00:06:41 Bob Neugebauer: that means.

00:06:41 Dylan Stocker: empowering the problem? Yes.

00:06:42 Bob Neugebauer: Exactly. They’re paying for the medical care. They’re paying for their Reeducation. I mean, there’s a whole host of things that we pay for, but we can’t find enough money to fund the sheriffs so that they can round them up and eliminate this particular expenditure. So if you eliminate the expenditure, then you have that three hundred to four hundred and fifty million that you get to the sheriffs, which comes

00:07:10 Dylan Stocker: Yeah.

00:07:10 Bob Neugebauer: first, the chicken or the egg?

00:07:13 Dylan Stocker: Well, so of course it’s follow the money. Nobody likes the truth. Your sheriff and all your county services are funded by property tax. Well, two years ago, when House Bill three eighty nine passed. House Bill three eighty nine came out and said that you can only take as much as three percent of property tax on. Guess what? New construction. Okay. Wow. So let’s let’s exacerbate growth. And meantime, while we’re packing all these people into these little places in Idaho, let’s limit the local services. And now this year, let’s put a federal requirement upon all of those same people. And let’s not give them any extra funding to do so. If Idaho state budget grew by sixty percent in the past seven years, did the population grow by sixty percent? That would be a pretty basic question. Did

00:08:18 Bob Neugebauer: I don’t

00:08:18 Dylan Stocker: the

00:08:18 Bob Neugebauer: think

00:08:18 Dylan Stocker: budgets

00:08:19 Bob Neugebauer: so.

00:08:19 Dylan Stocker: for those providing safety and security grow by sixty percent? No. In fact, they went flat as it relates to the CPI.

00:08:36 Bob Neugebauer: Something tells me there’s something rotten in Denmark. Oh, I didn’t mean Denmark, I meant Boise.

00:08:43 Dylan Stocker: Well, so let’s, let’s add some more to this. Uh, I’m focused on the sheriff’s, I believe in the office of the sheriff. I think that having individual representation across the lands of somebody constitutionally, uh, bound to the people that elected them is very important. Um, it was very interesting to me talking to this person who is very well knowledgeable about the sheriff’s work today. They had told me to this point, through all this hot button legislative issue that relates to the sheriff. They have not been asked one single time to come to the state House and talk about the solution part of it. They’ve all been asked to come and be witnesses and asked to become and give their statements for this bill or these bills, but at no point have the sheriff’s been welcomed to say, hey, what is your stresses? What is happening? And so I asked this individual, I’m like, well, how many legislatures, legislators have even reached out to their sheriff? And I’m working on that number right now. I have a message out to all sheriffs. Just answer me one question. Have you been contacted by your legislator later? Have you been contacted by any. And if so, who? From what I’m hearing right now is there might be as little as ten sheriffs across the county that have been asked. While the state is cramming down heavy requirements on the sheriff that the taxpayer, the property tax payer is paying for. Uh, that sounds like a basic leadership issue to me as a leader, Bob. I would say, wow, we have a huge problem. Who’s the one managing it? Well, Dylan, it’s the sheriff’s. Oh, hey, sheriffs, come on up to my office. What the heck is going on here? Let’s talk this out. That hasn’t happened one single time, Bob.

00:10:45 Bob Neugebauer: Why are you surprised?

00:10:47 Dylan Stocker: I can’t say that I’m surprised. I can say that I’m outwardly disgusted and the attitudes are gross. So let me give you some more examples. In my in my road trip through Idaho politics in the last year, I have personally reached out to many legislators. I have personally reached out to many sheriffs. I have personally reached out to many commissioners and their attitudes are are so unprofessional. It is mind boggling when you send them a message about something that they think that is important to them, and the second that they find out that maybe you don’t have it, they just I mean, they have this attitude of just ghosting people. One of the experiences I had is last year I posted a comment from Sheriff Kieran Donahue that on my show, he had said, the bottom line is, is the legislature is not doing their job. They’re not talking to us. And in my show, Mike or Kieran, who’s very vocal, says Mike Moyle, do your frickin job. I reached I posted that clip and Brian Lenny reached out and started bashing me about that. Kieran needed to just sign the two eighty seven G agreement and I said, Brian, no offense. Have you reached out to your sheriff, Kieran Donahue? He is in your district. Brian’s response was literally, no, he hasn’t reached out to me either. Kieran Donahue has three hundred employees and his is dealing with, uh, things that are well beyond capacity today. the sheriffs are struggling with just the jails itself. Every single day, Sheriff Kieran Donahue and the prosecutor have to look at the jail and identify who to let out early because they’re out of capacity. Meanwhile, the state is pumping state inmates into county jails. It costs one hundred and forty dollars a day average to store an inmate for the state. It’s their responsibility. They pay the county’s seventy five dollars a day for the first week and fifty five dollars a day for every day after that. Who’s paying that difference? Guess what, Bob, it’s you.

00:13:20 Bob Neugebauer: Don’t

00:13:20 Dylan Stocker: You.

00:13:20 Bob Neugebauer: have to tell me. I already know that.

00:13:22 Dylan Stocker: Your property tax. Meanwhile, if you live in rural Idaho and you have a heart attack and it’s golden hour where you need to get to a medical facility within that hour to have any chance of real survival. We can’t even fund EMS services across our state for the most basic service, but the state, it can spend an extra sixty percent every seven years, apparently.

00:13:48 Bob Neugebauer: Yeah, and that’s a serious problem. Uh, we get very little, if any, money from the state. Uh, when it comes to EMS. And in fact, I will tell you, when we built our last jail about ten years ago, the doors wouldn’t even lock. So we didn’t have to worry about how many jails, how many jails were going to actually hold prisoners. They just left the doors open. They could leave whenever they wanted. It was much simpler that way. I think that’s what Donoghue should probably do the

00:14:13 Dylan Stocker: Well, I’ll

00:14:14 Bob Neugebauer: last.

00:14:14 Dylan Stocker: tell you what. There’s another problem in all of this. When you ask, let’s say you do participate in two eighty seven G. You are about to use your jail facility to house these individuals. When you have the ACLU out there, A very large number of Idaho jails currently fail the jailing standard of today. Go look in the town of Moscow, Idaho. Right when you pull into town, there is a city police building that would blow your mind. I mean, I don’t know how many multi millions of dollars that it was, but the county sheriff’s office in that town because that’s where the seat is, is. I think it’s forty, fifty years old and hasn’t received a single upgrade. I mean, you go in there and it feels like you’re stepping back in time. And so. It’s a it’s a spending problem. It’s a it’s a Moneyball problem. Everybody needs to remember that your basic services are provided by the county itself. Nobody wants to pay property tax. But no matter what you’re paying sales tax, you’re paying grocery tax. You’re paying state level tax all over the place. And you you don’t even have a ride to the hospital. If you live in rural Idaho and Idaho is not giving any to it.

00:15:41 Bob Neugebauer: Look, we’re fighting right now about having a separate district in each one of our towns. Actually, it’s Council, New Meadows and Brundage, three separate operations. They want to redistrict if they redistrict. You still have three separate operations, but the cost per operation goes up substantially from where we currently are to almost a fifty to one hundred percent increase in most cases. The problem here is we don’t consolidate, and I’ve talked to the commissioners about this, and they would like to consolidate the three different districts, but

00:16:24 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:16:25 Bob Neugebauer: they get resistance because a lot of the people who are on these volunteer fire departments and ambulance, uh, ambulance departments, the EMS departments,

00:16:36 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:16:36 Bob Neugebauer: they all get a stipend when they work for them. So take our city here in New Meadows, it’s probably thirty or so people who receive additional income to work on these particular fire departments or ambulance squads. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think they should be paid, but the problem is they need to consolidate all the districts so these people can help each other. If there ever is a real emergency where you only have two ambulances per town or one up in Brundage, that doesn’t make any sense. Everybody needs to be responsible for everybody else. If you’re in a county, as far as I’m concerned, and even if there’s a thirty mile While this distance between the two major towns. It shouldn’t matter. There should be coverage from both ends of the stick. And Brundage

00:17:35 Dylan Stocker: Well,

00:17:36 Bob Neugebauer: itself?

00:17:36 Dylan Stocker: if you take the cheap. Okay, so number one, EMS is often funded through the fire district. Fire

00:17:43 Bob Neugebauer: Yes.

00:17:43 Dylan Stocker: is mandated, right? And so it’s all in the guise of fire to try to support EMS. Right? And so in Boise County, for example, the different fire districts, you know, volunteer Garden Valley is funded. It’s a taxing district, but they’re trying to fund the EMS through that. Well, your average chief is going to get paid somewhere between eighty and one hundred thousand dollars in a rural Idaho. Well, if we’re

00:18:15 Bob Neugebauer: Right.

00:18:15 Dylan Stocker: going to have three different districts, do we have three different chiefs? You only need one

00:18:20 Bob Neugebauer: Uh.

00:18:20 Dylan Stocker: chief. Right. So there’s an there’s an example like, okay, let’s put three chiefs in there and have each little location pay for three different chiefs. You can’t. The Loman can’t afford one. Right? But. So it’s mandated where the money comes through fire. But they’re trying to prop it into EMS and ambulance oftentimes. And we’re talking about again, Bob, we’re talking about the system symptom. No matter what, the state government is not assisting in funding basic services. As a conservative state, the most important service is, in no particular order, Sheriff road and bridge, fire and EMS. And that is it. Outside of that, the government is your courthouse, your prosecuting attorney, your clerk, your assessor, your treasurer. The basics. If Idaho

00:19:23 Bob Neugebauer: All

00:19:23 Dylan Stocker: is

00:19:23 Bob Neugebauer: right.

00:19:23 Dylan Stocker: conservative Idaho, that would be it. That would be

00:19:26 Bob Neugebauer: So.

00:19:26 Dylan Stocker: all.

00:19:27 Bob Neugebauer: So then explain to me why we have a fourteen point two billion dollar budget, and that works out to about seven thousand dollars per person here in Idaho. Why do we have a problem paying for these things when we spend almost as much money per capita as California? I

00:19:51 Dylan Stocker: I

00:19:51 Bob Neugebauer: mean,

00:19:52 Dylan Stocker: would

00:19:52 Bob Neugebauer: it’s

00:19:52 Dylan Stocker: like.

00:19:52 Bob Neugebauer: ridiculous. Where does the money go? Is my big question is where is it going? And then I take a look at one hundred and twenty five million that disappeared from the health data exchange. I look at the Luma project, which has cost well over one hundred million and still doesn’t work, but they’re still spending another one hundred million to try and get it to work. These are the problems that we have. We have a spending problem. We don’t have an income problem.

00:20:21 Dylan Stocker: What? Absolutely. Bob. Um, look at look at how they’re using it. We could talk about a couple of subjects. Right. Let’s talk about small business. Small business represents a little over fifty percent of every person in Idaho. Of Idaho itself. Um, show me how Idaho helps small business in any single way. I am very familiar with how Idaho tries to generate economies. I worked for HP. If you’re in HP and you say we’re going to come to Idaho, Idaho will basically say we’ll refund you all your training dollars for the first however many months just for you to come here. Right? We will we’ll, we’ll shovel you money like crazy to pack a bunch of people in here. Idaho is very good at growth, very good at incentivizing big corporate America to come to Idaho. Very good at reducing property tax for new homeowners. Not you old ones. Those old ones have been paying it for years. The new ones. We’re going to reduce that for you. We’re going to exacerbate growth. Show me where that growth went back to pay for the government that we were born into believing, which is your sheriff, your fire, your EMS and your roads. If it’s not sheriff, fire, EMS and roads assessor, clerk, prosecuting attorney and any one of that. It is time for accountability. And why do people like Mike Moyle keep getting voted in? Because Mike Moyle got to be the poster child of saving you property tax money through House, the House Bill three hundred and nine. And he’s a hero for it. Meanwhile, they are spending every other dollar in Idaho’s disgusting budget on not basic government services period.

00:22:19 Bob Neugebauer: Okay, I go along with the fact that we do not take care of the small businesses here in town. There’s no question in Idaho, small business is a misnomer. Okay. Small business to them is micron small businesses. You HP remember HP? You know what they did. They took the money from the government and they brought in HB one visa people. All right. That’s where they use their money, not on Idahoans, on foreigners. I know this for a fact, because I was called by people who are up for retirement and were told, train these HB one people or you’re not going to get your retirement, we’ll

00:23:01 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:23:01 Bob Neugebauer: just plain fire you. The

00:23:03 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:23:03 Bob Neugebauer: same thing happens in micron in any of these large corporations, and they all run this state through Iaci. That is the critical problem we have. We have what I would call the representative government of Iraqi.

00:23:24 Dylan Stocker: Well. So for those that are listening, the Idaho Association for Commerce and Industry, uh, that Brad Little served as chair of before he came into his, uh, political stretches here in Idaho. It’s very simple numbers and, and here’s where it’s going to come to. I think it’s going to come to a head this year. It’s a poison apple. They bit it. Idaho is drunk on federal money. I know for a fact that a senior level Trump official came down to Brad Little and said, you will get these bills passed or it’s going to be it or it’s on you. I support the deportation. Okay. My greatest concern is. Show me where Brad Little or anybody in the government or the legislature. Show me where Mike Moyle has come down and talked to the sheriffs to ask the people that live and work here and are doing the most basic services how to solve this problem. It hasn’t happened. And whenever it hasn’t happened, there’s a reason for that. And here’s the truth. I hope people hear this. Governor Brad Little and Mike Moyle is scared of the sheriffs. They fear that if they empower the sheriffs by saying when, I mean by empowerment, by asking the sheriffs opinion, they recognize that the sheriff at any point can say, you know what? Don’t vote for this guy. The most powerful voting voice in all of Idaho is the sheriff. I guarantee you, if the sheriff of any county came down and said, hey, I just want you to know this is the truth. The best way that I can say it. You guys are paying for me. You know, we can’t get not getting this done, but, uh. The the state won’t talk to me. I’ve tried to talk to Governor Little. I’ve tried to talk to him. They won’t talk to us. And, uh. So don’t vote for them. And if the sheriffs decide to wake up and use their political voice, it is going to be a bloodbath for for Brad Little. It will be. It will be utterly powerful. And I think they’re getting ready to do it. And they should, to be honest with you, if you’re a governor and you don’t talk to your sheriffs, there’s a leadership problem here. Something else is more important. And I guarantee you it is not the county living person, because just look at the budget crisis that’s happening and all of those counties.

00:25:59 Bob Neugebauer: Look, we’ve had a leadership problem for seven and a half years ever since Brad Little was elected, and we had a leadership problem with our good friend Jack Daniels. Oh, I didn’t mean Jack Daniels. I mean Governor Otter. Uh, who who also spent three terms in office and did little or nothing. In fact, he caused us more angst than anybody else has caused us since then. And I include little little’s not quite as bad as Otter, but he’s getting there. My whole point is, if you take forty percent of your budget from the federal government, who do you think runs your state? It certainly isn’t the state.

00:26:37 Dylan Stocker: It is not the state. And, you know, I always chalk it up to this to some people demonize the governor like he’s the master man in control doing all this stuff. Mark my words, these people are pawns to to an established scenario of money to where it’s like, look, you know, we got your back, Brad, but if you go any other way than this, we’re taking you down and they create those, those things to happen. And the bottom line is you either have principles or you don’t. Your power matters more to you than the truth. And, you know, let’s take Mark Fitzpatrick. I mean, who’s that guy? Does he have any chance? I don’t know,

00:27:21 Bob Neugebauer: No.

00:27:22 Dylan Stocker: does

00:27:22 Bob Neugebauer: He wants

00:27:22 Dylan Stocker: he? I

00:27:22 Bob Neugebauer: to

00:27:22 Dylan Stocker: don’t

00:27:22 Bob Neugebauer: sell more

00:27:23 Dylan Stocker: think

00:27:23 Bob Neugebauer: beer.

00:27:23 Dylan Stocker: so. But if a guy like him or me got into the office and I was like, well, I’m not playing your game, what are they going to do to me? I mean, geez, does a state level governor get assassinated over over the power struggle because somebody went in for truth?

00:27:40 Bob Neugebauer: Problem

00:27:40 Dylan Stocker: The bottom I

00:27:40 Bob Neugebauer: is,

00:27:41 Dylan Stocker: mean,

00:27:41 Bob Neugebauer: he. He never

00:27:41 Dylan Stocker: I mean

00:27:41 Bob Neugebauer: gets.

00:27:41 Dylan Stocker: that

00:27:42 Bob Neugebauer: He. He’s never going to get elected. Okay.

00:27:44 Dylan Stocker: no,

00:27:44 Bob Neugebauer: I will

00:27:44 Dylan Stocker: and

00:27:44 Bob Neugebauer: tell you that.

00:27:45 Dylan Stocker: I, I

00:27:45 Bob Neugebauer: If

00:27:46 Dylan Stocker: see

00:27:46 Bob Neugebauer: if

00:27:46 Dylan Stocker: that.

00:27:47 Bob Neugebauer: if. For Russ Fulcher couldn’t get elected running against Otter for a third term after the terrible things that he had done. I will tell you that this guy Mark is not going to get elected running against little. He might

00:28:03 Dylan Stocker: Yeah.

00:28:03 Bob Neugebauer: get a

00:28:03 Dylan Stocker: I

00:28:03 Bob Neugebauer: few

00:28:03 Dylan Stocker: mean,

00:28:03 Bob Neugebauer: more

00:28:03 Dylan Stocker: he’s

00:28:04 Bob Neugebauer: people

00:28:04 Dylan Stocker: got little

00:28:04 Bob Neugebauer: to come

00:28:04 Dylan Stocker: to no

00:28:04 Bob Neugebauer: down for

00:28:04 Dylan Stocker: chance.

00:28:05 Bob Neugebauer: a beer. No, he might have a few people come down for another beer or whatever to his bar, but he is not going to get elected. Ammon Bundy had the second highest okay numbers in terms of running against an incumbent, and he wound up with a little over seventeen and a half percent of the vote. Why do you think they attacked Ammon Bundy? Why do you think he had to leave the state? Because they didn’t want an Ammon Bundy here. That was dangerous to their political future. This

00:28:43 Dylan Stocker: Well,

00:28:43 Bob Neugebauer: is why

00:28:44 Dylan Stocker: now

00:28:44 Bob Neugebauer: he’s not here.

00:28:45 Dylan Stocker: what? What’s shaping up right now? This conversation. Bob, I agree, I one hundred percent agree with you and I why I love and respect you for what you do is that I know that you are in there, you do the work right. You are not just some social X person, right? Like you’re in there. What is shaping up right now is I think the sheriffs are about to stand for Idaho. I think that they’re about to expel some truths, and I really hope that they do. I encourage them to come together and just it’s very simple. If the leadership in the legislature and the governor himself hasn’t gone to the sheriffs and said, hey, what are the problems? How can I help you? Um, why Sam Holt’s last year told me in my interview with him before all of this, that the legislature for years has blocked them and not talked to them. Is the operating constitutional officer of your state not an important conversation? I, I, I, I, I can’t even understand why, to be honest with you, Bob, but there’s clearly power struggle involved.

00:30:01 Bob Neugebauer: And the. The interesting thing is that the sheriffs are all elected by the populace.

00:30:06 Dylan Stocker: Thank you for that. And yes, that is very important. What is happening right now is the degradation of the office of the sheriff, and you are having state over power grow by leaps and bounds. And trust me, it will come with a police force. And

00:30:24 Bob Neugebauer: Oh,

00:30:25 Dylan Stocker: if

00:30:25 Bob Neugebauer: I

00:30:25 Dylan Stocker: your

00:30:25 Bob Neugebauer: don’t doubt that.

00:30:26 Dylan Stocker: if your police force is going to be in the name of the person who is in that seat, then your constitutional connection to this what is a miracle will have been destroyed. What will happen when governor, governor so and so says during the next Covid that you can’t run your business and you all must mask up? Well, the sheriff will say, I’m not doing that and you can stay open. Or the state police force comes in and says, I work for the governor and you will do this. And we have lost everything at that point.

00:30:59 Bob Neugebauer: Well, we should have fired that guy when he did it the first time.

00:31:03 Dylan Stocker: So I’m a little bit, uh, I take it in some people’s opinion, a little bit too far, but that is actually what is shaping up right now. Bob. That is actually what is happening. The state trying to force the elected sheriff to act in the will of the state and not their people that elected them and, and not committing any funding whatsoever in that bill to help them out with it is, is an attack on the sheriff, period. Hey, Bob, I want you to go do three times as much work. Take on three times as much risk in your job. And I’m giving you no money to do that. Uh, that’s

00:31:45 Bob Neugebauer: Well,

00:31:45 Dylan Stocker: that’s irresponsible, my friend.

00:31:46 Bob Neugebauer: look, they’ve been doing that for years. I remember having a conversation with Sheriff Donohue about, oh, ten or twelve years ago when they had the drive by shootings in Nampa and Caldwell And literally, I mean, the place was becoming a hazardous place to live. In fact, what’s happened lately is he put most of these guys away for seven to ten years. They’re all back here on the streets again.

00:32:13 Dylan Stocker: Yep.

00:32:13 Bob Neugebauer: He’s dealing with the same people. Okay? At a totally different time. But there are a lot older there a lot wiser, and they don’t get caught as often. So who’s helping us here? We we have them arrested. We have them put in jail, and they come right back home and we have to operate with the same amount of money we have been all along and get them out again. How do you do that?

00:32:43 Dylan Stocker: Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s all about centralized power and money. Um, you know, if you the problem with the state empowering counties with funds are those individual counties elect people that have different opinions and some of which may not support the said governor and the or the said speaker. And so when a commissioner or a sheriff comes out with their public platform and says, yeah, don’t do these folks. Um, if the state keeps empowers the county with money for those basic services, they’re also empowering their own opposition. I don’t know if that’s in by design or what it is, but, uh, bringing it back to the basics. Idaho is spending and spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and we can’t update our sheriffs with jails. We can’t provide basic EMS services. And where I live, in the last three years, three homes burnt down to the ground, straight to the ground because, um, not that the volunteer fire department wasn’t trying, but they are not funded. We can’t even we don’t even have a basic government right now.

00:34:03 Bob Neugebauer: All right. Let’s let’s take a look at this from from a different point of view. Uh, if you have a state government that doesn’t care about your county’s, uh, you can’t fund what you need to fund because the state sucks up all of the dollars. We get forty percent of the money that we have for a budget from the federal government, right?

00:34:30 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:34:31 Bob Neugebauer: Five point five billion dollars of that money goes to health care, Medicaid, Medicare. All right. Three point three or four billion goes to education. We have a total of fourteen billion dollars in the budget. So you’ve already sucked up about nine billion. Now we still have five billion left. I’m trying to figure out how they spend that five billion dollars. When? Six years ago, we were living on a total budget of less than seven billion.

00:35:15 Dylan Stocker: Let me ask one question, Bob.

00:35:18 Bob Neugebauer: I mean,

00:35:18 Dylan Stocker: Has

00:35:18 Bob Neugebauer: I’m a

00:35:18 Dylan Stocker: our

00:35:18 Bob Neugebauer: numbers guy.

00:35:19 Dylan Stocker: has has our population increased by sixty percent in seven years?

00:35:24 Bob Neugebauer: Well, of course not.

00:35:25 Dylan Stocker: Nope. Um, so, uh, what how how did we just do that? Let’s do some county level stuff. Okay. I’m running for commissioner in my county. I have done a freedom of information request on the budgets. Right. So let’s talk roads. Okay. Even highway fifty five is over five hundred percent capacity. And we can’t even the state can’t even deal or pay with that. My county’s road and bridge budget is three point five million bucks. Okay. That includes all employees. That includes all equipment. That includes all retirement. That includes the whole thing. It costs one point three million dollars to pave one single mile of

00:36:11 Bob Neugebauer: I

00:36:11 Dylan Stocker: road,

00:36:11 Bob Neugebauer: know that. I know what you’re

00:36:12 Dylan Stocker: one

00:36:13 Bob Neugebauer: talking

00:36:13 Dylan Stocker: point

00:36:13 Bob Neugebauer: about.

00:36:13 Dylan Stocker: three million dollars to

00:36:14 Bob Neugebauer: Yep.

00:36:14 Dylan Stocker: pay one single mile of road. Boise County has three hundred and eighty miles of county road. The most important factor for safety and security in any rural county is quality roads. Right now in Clear Creek, residents who have called EMS had to get hauled out by a pickup truck down to the bottom of the road because the volunteer EMS would not drive down that road. So Bob’s having a heart attack. He’s got to get loaded into the back of a pickup truck to get to the ambulance. And meanwhile, the governor and all their friends sure look like they’re eating some pretty big steaks out there, don’t you think?

00:37:00 Bob Neugebauer: I’d say they’re eating way too much steak.

00:37:03 Dylan Stocker: So.

00:37:03 Bob Neugebauer: I think we ought to give them a few mutton chops with some, uh, wool

00:37:07 Dylan Stocker: It’s.

00:37:07 Bob Neugebauer: on top.

00:37:08 Dylan Stocker: The state is not supporting the counties. The counties are basic government. And so what government do we have? We have a banana republic government, just like you said. California.

00:37:19 Bob Neugebauer: And the unfortunate part is, you know, we have a government that is ruled by corporate entities. A good many of those secured this state for themselves twenty, thirty years ago from the ag business.

00:37:34 Dylan Stocker: Sure.

00:37:34 Bob Neugebauer: It was it was the simplot’s. Um, uh, the people like little. I mean, these people own literally thousands upon thousands of acres of land. I mean, you take a look. I believe little himself is. His family owns about thirty three thousand acres of land. Now, you wonder why the money goes to the AG guys when they control all this? They control so much of Idaho that we can’t even get a grasp on what they’re doing with the money. One hundred and eighty nine agencies. Where does it all go to?

00:38:17 Dylan Stocker: I don’t think any of us are going to be able to answer that until a regime change takes place. And this is what’s weird to me, Bob. I run a business. I’ve always worked in sales and in business. It’s all about incentives, right? Okay, so why is a percentage of Idaho’s income on sales tax not given back to the county that generates that? Hey, you’re doing good job in tourism in whatever county that you’re running. If you grow it, you get a percentage of what that that money is. It is a it is a organizational relationship between the state and the counties. The state is taking utterly everything and leaving it on the backs of the property tax payer to deal with their own basic services. There is very little to no money coming back from the revenue. Those counties are generating. That goes to the state and not coming back. It is at a fever pitch moment and it’s it’s it’s very clear organizationally to see what the problem is. The state government is beyond out of control and is not consulting with the counties that are actually governing the people.

00:39:35 Bob Neugebauer: Okay. Out of all of the money that we collect from the sales tax, how much do you think is extra after we pay all of the credits that go back to the people.

00:39:46 Dylan Stocker: Are you talking about grocery tax?

00:39:48 Bob Neugebauer: Yes, just

00:39:49 Dylan Stocker: Oh,

00:39:49 Bob Neugebauer: the grocery

00:39:50 Dylan Stocker: I think

00:39:50 Bob Neugebauer: tax.

00:39:50 Dylan Stocker: I think we collect somewhere around two hundred and fifty to three hundred million. And they credit back around one hundred and twenty five mil.

00:39:58 Bob Neugebauer: One hundred and fifty five million of that money goes back to the state. It is their slush fund.

00:40:04 Dylan Stocker: Yep.

00:40:05 Bob Neugebauer: People don’t get that. It’s a slush fund. It’s to cover all of the mistakes that they have made during the year. Without that, they’d probably fall apart and have to raise taxes again. My whole point here is you’re absolutely right. The county should receive a portion of that tax money,

00:40:24 Dylan Stocker: Absolutely.

00:40:24 Bob Neugebauer: but they’re not going to give it up. They couldn’t give it back to the people who paid it. Why would they give it to the counties?

00:40:34 Dylan Stocker: Well, I’m a proponent for, um, you’ve got to support your basic services and that is your county. And if you are listening to this, I would, I would, I would go and ask your sheriff directly if anyone in the legislature has lecture has reached out to that sheriff. The reason why that’s an important question is because today, not only is your account your sheriff trying to do what they can for you, there’s good ones and bad ones, don’t get me wrong, but vote out the bad ones. But the state is about to pass more of a burden onto your sheriff, and they aren’t going to give a single penny back to them. That’s

00:41:17 Bob Neugebauer: Oh, I agree.

00:41:17 Dylan Stocker: going to affect that’s going to affect the living person.

00:41:22 Bob Neugebauer: I don’t know what the answer is. If we can’t get rid of the rhinos that we have in our legislature, and we can’t get rid of the people that are basically bought and paid for by iaki, we don’t have a chance. The people of Idaho, especially the rural communities, we don’t have a Chinaman’s chance in hell of getting any of that money. It’s not going to happen. I’ve watched it for thirty three years. I’ve seen what’s happened here. It’s not a pretty sight and it is not going to get any better.

00:41:55 Dylan Stocker: Well, I’m going to make a statement that, yes, I agree with you, but if any sheriff or deputies are listening to this, your sheriff needs to now be that voice. Your sheriff is the most single connected individual to all of the people of those individual counties, and they know better than most about what I’m talking about and about what you’re experiencing. The sheriffs need to organize and they need to, uh, take their seat at the table and at least evaluate a conversation between them and the state. And they are the shepherd of the county. And commissioners Are utterly powerless. But the sheriff has the voice and the sheriff. The sheriff needs to get out and use it now. It is now. It is now past. A little boo boo here and there. It is now obvious gross misuse of funds. And there are. Tens of thousands of miles of roads that are unmaintained all over Idaho. Your average person in rural Idaho cannot even get a ride to the hospital and there is no money for fire and EMS. What are we paying for, Brad Little? What is my property tax paying for? Uh, it’s it’s not enough to cover it. And I don’t want to pay property tax, so you’re going to have to take some of the pie and give it back to the counties.

00:43:23 Bob Neugebauer: Nah, you paid for his chainsaw that used in a commercial last time he got elected.

00:43:29 Dylan Stocker: Let’s not talk about the least regulated state, least regulated state dot com. It’s all alive folks. You should read that.

00:43:37 Bob Neugebauer: Well, unfortunately, not enough people read. They’re too busy out there hunting and fishing and riding their ATVs and watching the Final Four or whatever it might be on sports. Uh, it gets really aggravating to me that, uh, we don’t have enough people who care to go out and even vote in the last special election that we had, and that was a year ago. Okay. We had only thirty five not I think it was thirty five. Twenty five to thirty percent of the people in Idaho came out to vote in this special election. Now you tell me, how do you change something when the people don’t care?

00:44:23 Dylan Stocker: You gotta dig up the truth. Ask the people that live in Minnesota whether they care what happened or not. Until Nick Shirley came out and really exposed the problem. Trust me, things are going to change. Things will change there. Um, it’s happening here in Idaho. It just takes the people that are scared to get the utter truth out. And, uh, the problem is exacerbating itself to a point where it’s, it’s going to, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s going to be hung on the backs of the people that have been creating this problem. I do believe that.

00:44:58 Bob Neugebauer: All I can say is from your lips to God’s ears. Let’s hope it happens. But I’m from Missouri. You gotta show me.

00:45:06 Dylan Stocker: Show me state you are you are a man of words. Good sir. You can always connect it, I tell you.

00:45:14 Bob Neugebauer: Anyway, I, uh, I think we’ll close this session out. We’ll have another one and talk a little bit more about this. Maybe in a week or two and, and see where we’ve gotten after the end of this legislative session and see how many actual bills they passed that were worthwhile. Uh, but all we can do is get the word out. If people don’t listen and people don’t act, I don’t know what else you can do.

00:45:39 Dylan Stocker: You pay attention to your sheriffs, because I guarantee you, in this election year, uh, I pretty much believe that the sheriffs are going to have an opinion and we should all be watching if if the state even welcomes the sheriff to the table, because over the past five years they have blocked them. That is an organizational problem. The symptom of that problem is an organizational leadership issue. And you know, your sheriff, because you voted for them and they probably live next to you. Uh, you don’t live next to Brad Little. I can assure you that. So let’s see how it comes out. I’ll keep you posted.

00:46:15 Bob Neugebauer: Thank you. Have a great day. And thank you very much for spending some time with us on the Idaho Pulse.

00:46:21 Dylan Stocker: Love the Idaho pulse. Thank you. Love gem state Patriot. Uh, you are the gem State patriot. Good, sir. Thank you.

00:46:28 Bob Neugebauer: Take care, my friend.

00:46:29 Dylan Stocker: Take care.