(Pocatello Police Department Press Release, August 31, 2026; Cover photo credit: PPD)
POCATELLO, IDAHO — The Pocatello Police Department is investigating the death of an adult male following a family dispute that turned physical in the 800 block of Park Avenue.
Officers were originally dispatched to the area at approximately 1515 hours on August 30, 2026. During the investigation, officers determined that the victim and the suspect were involved in a family dispute that escalated into a physical altercation. The victim sustained injuries during the altercation and subsequently died.
On August 30, 2026, at approximately 2200 hours, Andrew Scoffield, an adult male, was taken into custody and booked into the Bannock County Jail on a charge of Second-Degree Homicide.
The identity of the victim will not be released at this time.
August 28, 2026 (Cover Image Credit: Gem State Chronicle)
A Closer Look at the Public School Funding Formula
By: Gem State Chronicle Publisher Brian Almon
Brian Almon
A debate is brewing over how Idaho should fund its public schools. Our State Constitution mandates that the Legislature “establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.” The debate ahead of the 2027 legislative session is over exactly how the Legislature should accomplish that mandate.
Idaho’s public school funding formula is rather complicated, but the basic idea is fairly simple: the state counts the children who actually attend school, converts that number into “support units” based on factors such as grade level, school size, and special needs, and then uses those support units to determine how much money each district receives. While activists and policymakers often point to approximately $9,000 in Idaho tax dollars spent per public school student, the formula is more complex than a single chunk of money allocated for each student. Attendance is the starting point, and the number and type of students being served determine how many support units a school generates.
According to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, this formula has not undergone any meaningful updates for more than thirty years. Earlier this week, she issued an op-ed calling upon the Legislature to be open to reforming the funding formula:
When I think about what schools looked like 32 years ago, I can confidently tell you it’s not the same now. To name just a few: schools used blackboards, overhead projectors, and dial-up internet, available in a computer lab (if at all!). Our state was smaller, and we were over a decade away from the population boom we’ve recently experienced.
Between 1994 and today, the Idaho classroom has changed. Your life and household looks different from 1994 too. These changes are not limited to education; it’s just life. Our students deserve to be supported by a formula that reflects the needs of the 21st century, not those of students who sat in classrooms over three decades ago. In fact, many of the students from the early 90s now have their own children in our schools! And trust me, they have opinions on how we should educate.
[…]
So, what’s next? Now that the formal work of listening is logged, what can Idahoans expect as we dig into the work of revising and rewriting?
We will be working with legislators to help shape what changes will look like. That will include financial analyses and putting together models to be shared with districts and charters, the public at large, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, and anyone else that’s interested, as we head into next legislative session this winter.
The superintendent did not make any specific policy prescriptions regarding the funding formula, but I’m sure her office is already in discussions with legislators to craft a new system.
Something else is different between the 1990s and today, and that is how many students are enrolled in our public school system. Last December, I examined how the student population of Idaho has changed over the past few decades and found that, as a percentage of the total population, public school enrollment has dropped from 21.72% in 1991 to just 15.89% in 2024. Total public school enrollment peaked at just under 319,000 in 2022 but then declined over the following two years.
What does this mean for public school funding?
This paradigm has significant implications for budgeting and public policy in Idaho. Despite continual historic and unprecedented investments in public education, K-12 enrollment is not only shrinking as a share of the population but is now declining in raw numbers. Because the funding formula is based on enrollment, this means the cost per student can only increase. It costs a certain amount to run a district office, maintain buildings, and pay teachers and support staff regardless of how many students are enrolled. Inflation has made all of this more expensive as well.
Note: In the December 2025 article, I used the term “enrollment” to refer to the funding formula. “Attendance” is a more precise term, as Chris Cargill explains in his recent op-ed.
Schools have certain fixed costs, no matter how many students are enrolled. A building made to accommodate 1,000 students still has the same basic costs for electricity, heating and air conditioning, water and sewer, and some support staff even if it is serving only 500. If each grade level loses five students, that’s not necessarily enough to lay off one teacher and consolidate classrooms, but it could decrease the amount of money received from state coffers. This is a real issue districts face, but preserving the status quo should not be the goal of our funding formula.
Earlier this year, I took a look at Boise School District’s open enrollment reports, which showed how many vacancies there were in classrooms and grade levels throughout the district. The state requires districts to publish these reports so families who want to enroll their children in a different district than the one in which they live can know where there is available space. It never made it into an article, but what I found was that many grade levels throughout Boise had up to dozens of available seats. At the time, there were more than 4,000 open spots in the district as a whole, not counting virtual or special schools. That many vacancies would suggest that some sort of consolidation might be warranted to account for decreasing enrollment. However, the Boise School Board decided to raise taxes by 18% instead.
Indeed, the contrast between Boise and neighboring West Ada School District is a reminder that money isn’t everything. Boise taxpayers spend more than $16,000 per student, compared to less than $10,000 per student in West Ada. Yet West Ada clearly outperforms Boise when it comes to several measures of student outcomes. Its graduation rate is 88.8%, compared to Boise’s 82.3%. On the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), West Ada students averaged 69.1% in English language arts and 57.6% in math, compared to 53.3% and 46.4% in Boise.
If money were solely responsible for student success, then Boise would be at the top of the charts. Yet public school advocates inevitably demand more money every year, arguing that our public schools are underfunded. Late last year, a coalition of school districts, teachers’ unions, and individuals sued Idaho over the Parental Choice Tax Credit, claiming that the $50 million appropriation detracted from the Legislature’s constitutional mandate to fund public schools—despite the state already spending around $3 billion a year on public education, plus much more from local taxpayers in the form of bonds and levies.
Money isn’t everything; how we spend money is perhaps more important than the total amount. So how should we fund our public schools? Mountain States Policy Center President Chris Cargill’s recent op-ed warned that shifting to an enrollment-based formula, rather than our current system based on attendance, is the wrong idea:
Idaho’s ADA system isn’t as unforgiving as critics sometimes portray it. For funding purposes, the state can use the 28 weeks with the highest average daily attendance. There are also protections for unusual attendance disruptions. In other words, a flu outbreak, a terrible snow week or a child staying home sick for a few days doesn’t automatically blow a hole in a district’s budget.
There is another reason Idaho lawmakers should be cautious about turning enrollment into a blank check. We recently discovered that the definition of “enrolled” can be considerably more expansive than many parents realize.
During implementation of Idaho’s new Parental Choice Tax Credit, some homeschool families were surprised to discover that their children were considered enrolled in public schools because they participated in activities such as sports, cheerleading or after-school clubs.
Some families didn’t even know their children were considered enrolled until it suddenly mattered. That became an issue because Idaho’s original parental choice law generally prohibited families from receiving the credit during a semester in which their child was enrolled in a public school. Lawmakers wisely corrected the problem in 2026, clarifying that participation in nonacademic extracurricular activities does not make a student “enrolled” for purposes of the parental choice program.
Cargill concluded with this:
The purpose of Idaho’s education system is to serve students. The purpose of students is not to fund the system.
As we near the 2027 legislative session, let’s have a sober and rational discussion about how to best fund the students our public education system is meant to serve. Superintendent Critchfield is absolutely right that the 21st century has changed the way classroom education takes place. We need a nimble and agile system that gets the best bang for its buck and produces well-educated adults ready to take up the mantle of citizenship in our Republic—not one that exists to serve ossified special interests like the teachers’ union.
I believe there are some basic principles around which conservatives should be able to unite:
Funding must be based on real students, not accounting categories.
Fixed costs are real, and districts need predictability, but they don’t justify permanently insulating districts from enrollment changes.
Funding must be transparent enough that citizens can understand how their money is being used. Conversely, districts must be held accountable for how they use taxpayer money.
The funding formula should be based on what works best for students, not designed to protect existing institutions.
Most importantly, more money should no longer be treated as synonymous with better education.
Our students deserve the best education possible, and taxpayers deserve the best investment possible. I think it’s possible for a system to accomplish both, but it’s going to take hard work and involvement from you. If you’re not talking to your lawmakers, know that special interests and lobbyists are, and their concerns might not be the same as yours. As a reminder, you can share your thoughts on this issue directly with your elected legislators using tools like Email the Legislature at Idaho Insider.
Brian Almon is the Editor of the Gem State Chronicle. He also serves as Chairman of the District 14 Republican Party and is a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board. He lives with his wife and five children in Eagle.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Gem State Chronicle. I encourage our readers to visit their website and consider subscribing. Find this and other informative articles at the Gem State Chronicle here: About – Gem State Chronicle
It’s in your house and your furniture. It’s the stack of mail on your counter and the box your Amazon order arrived in. These are just some of the everyday wood products that begin as timber, a critical driver of Idaho’s economy, particularly in places like Lewiston. But the impact goes even further. Our forests also power our schools, and not just the pencils Idaho’s students use in the classroom.
As Secretary of State, I serve on the Idaho Land Board alongside Governor Brad Little, Attorney General Raúl Labrador, State Controller Brandon Woolf, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield. Together, we oversee nearly 2.5 million acres of state endowment land, much of which was granted to Idaho at statehood for a specific purpose: to generate revenue for public schools and other beneficiaries.
At our recent meeting, the Land Board approved a record $132.5 million distributionto Idaho’s schools, universities, and other beneficiaries, surpassing last year’s record of $117.3 million.
I had all of this on my mind during a recent visit to Lewiston, where I got to see two very different sides of Idaho’s forest products industry.
At the Idaho Forest Group Lewiston Mill, which dates back to the early 1920s, we watched timber fresh from Idaho forests make its way through the mill, where it was cut, sorted, and prepared for its next use. From there, we visited Clearwater Paper, an Idaho company with roots stretching back more than 100 years that has continued to reinvent itself.
Next time you pick up a carton of takeout food or see a product displayed in packaging at the grocery store, there’s a chance it came from Idaho. Seeing these operations firsthand, I was struck by their size and scale, but even more by how far the impact of our forests reaches.
Idaho’s forest products industry supports thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity. Our endowment lands take that impact one step further. Revenue generated from those lands goes back to our schools and other beneficiaries, while the lands themselves continue to provide opportunities for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation.
From the lumber in our homes to the packaging on our shelves to the funding for our schools, Idaho’s forests do a lot of work for all of us.
Phil McGrane
ABOUT SECRETARY PHIL McGRANE
Phil McGrane was elected Idaho’s twenty-eighth Secretary of State and took office on January 2, 2023. McGrane served as elected Clerk of Ada County from 2019-2022.McGrane holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, a juris doctorate, and a Master of Public Administration. As a fourth-generation Idahoan, Phil has dedicated his career to making elections in the state of Idaho accessible, secure and transparent.
August 28, 2026 (Cover Photo Credit: Karyn Simmons)
Dear Friends,
Raul Labrador (Photo Credit: Raul Labrador FB)
For years Meta assured parents that Instagram was safe for their children while its own internal records documented what the platform was doing to them. This week the company agreed to pay $17.1 billion and to rebuild how Facebook and Instagram work for children. Idaho will receive between $89.2 million and $127.7 million of that, a share of one of the largest state consumer protection settlements on record outside the Big Tobacco cases of the 1990s.
Attorneys general around the country spent years investigating how social media companies were designing and promoting their platforms to children and teens despite the harms those companies knew about. That investigation found that Meta designed Instagram’s features to addict children while internally documenting the mental health damage that followed and failing to warn parents. Fifty-five attorneys general sued Meta, individually or as part of a consolidated federal lawsuit, and 47 states joined the settlement announced this week, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Parents are the first line of defense for children in Idaho, and that role depends on accurate information. A mother deciding whether her thirteen-year-old can have an Instagram account is relying on what the company says the product does. When a company misrepresents that, the parent loses the ability to make the decision at all. Consumer protection law exists for exactly this reason. The requirement is that a company tell the truth about what it is selling, and Meta purposefully misled the public about the safety of its platforms. Enforcing that requirement is not the government substituting its judgment for a parent’s. It is the government making sure the parent has what she needs to exercise her own.
Meta fought these claims for years, and trial began on August 18 in federal court and was expected to last several weeks. The company settled in the second week, and the agreement has now been approved by all sides.
The money is significant, but the more important win here is the changes that will be made going forward. Meta must impose a combined two-hour daily limit across Instagram and Facebook for children, with mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling. Access is blocked from midnight to 6 a.m., and push notifications are eliminated on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the school year. The company must adopt robust age assurance measures, stronger safeguards against bullying and against content promoting eating disorders, suicide, and self-harm, and more usable parental controls. It must also limit the social comparison features linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens, including beauty filters and visible like counts. An independent auditor and the settling states will regularly assess both whether Meta implements these changes and whether they work.
This settlement cannot undo the harm already done to children who spent their adolescence on these platforms. Meta remains a company built to maximize engagement, and teenagers remain resourceful enough to work around most restrictions placed in front of them. What we secured is a set of basic tools for Idaho parents and a public record of what one of the largest companies in the world knew while it told families something different.
The same design choices are at work on other platforms, aimed at the same developing minds, and my office will approach those companies with the same seriousness we brought to this one. Protecting children in Idaho and putting parents in the driver’s seat is among the most important responsibilities this office carries.
Best regards,
ABOUT THE OFFICE
The Attorney General’s Office provides legal representation to the State of Idaho. The Attorney General and his deputies represent state agencies and offices, to better the lives of Idahoans.
For more information about the Office, visit our website here.
Pocatello–Tomorrow at their weekly meeting, the group “Patriots for Liberty & Constitution” will continue discussing Marshall Foster’s book, The American Covenant. The plan for this week is to finish chapter 1, including an in-depth discussion Benjamin Franklin’s address to the Constitutional Convention on the topic of prayer.
August 31, 2026 (Cover Photo Credit: City of Pocatello)
The City of Pocatello’s Road Construction & Traffic Report for the week of August 31, 2026, has been published and may be read here.
Highlights include:
Street sweepers are currently performing their regular sweeping schedule.
The Street Services crew will be patching potholes and curb lines throughout the City.
Traffic Operations crews are repainting crosswalks throughout the City.
Crews will be jetting and cleaning sewer mainlines throughout the City.
The intersection at West Clark Street and North Garfield Avenue has been updated to a 4-way stop.
Street Services will be milling and paving sections of Wayne Ave.
Work continues on the water mainline replacement project on Gray Ave. and Howard Ave. between West Alameda Rd. and West Eldredge Rd.
East Carter St. remains closed between South 11th Ave. and East Oak St. for water main installation
Demolition of the Monarch Building continues.
Work continues on the Benton Street Bridge, Johny Creek’s Expanded Sewer Project, the Center Street Underpass, and the safety improvements in the area of Hiline Rd. and El Rancho Blvd.
W Fremont Street will be closed between N Johnson Avenue & N Grant Avenue from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on September 5 for the Bannock County Veterans Memorial Association 4th Annual Car Show and Community Block Party.
South Garfield Avenue will be closed between Center Street and West Lewis Street from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM on September 5 for the 2026 Shady Grove Music Camp.
South Garfield Avenue between Center Street and West Lewis Street will be closed from 2 PM to 9 PM on Mondays for Curbside Cravings.
South Garfield Avenue between Center Street and West Lewis Street will be closed from 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM on Wednesdays for the Bannock Civitan Club’s Revive @ 5 Summer Concerts.
South Garfield Avenue between Center Street and West Lewis Street will be closed from 6 AM to 3 PM every Saturday for the Portneuf Valley Farmers Market.
(Pocatello Police Department Press Release, August 30, 2026; Cover photo credit: PPD)
POCATELLO, IDAHO — The Pocatello Police Department is currently investigating the suspicious death of an adult male in the 800 block of Park Avenue.
Officers were dispatched to the area at approximately 1515 hours following a report that prompted the investigation. Upon arrival, officers located an adult male who was deceased.
The circumstances surrounding the death remain under investigation. At this time, there is no known threat to the public, and all pertinent parties involved are being interviewed.
No further information will be released at this time. Additional information will be provided at a later date.
(Bannock County Press Release, August 28, 2026; Cover Photo Credit: Bannock County)
Bannock County Commissioners Meetings, Aug. 31-Sept. 4, 2026
Monday, August 31, 2026:
There are no meetings scheduled at this time.
Tuesday, September 1, 2026:
9:00 AM Business Meeting (action items)
Wednesday, September 2, 2026:
There are no meetings scheduled at this time.
Thursday, September 3, 2026:
9:00 AM Work Session and Claims Meeting (action items)
The Work Session Agenda will be updated on Monday, August 31, 2026.
Friday, September 4, 2026:
There are no meetings scheduled at this time.
(The information packets for the business meeting and work session can be found at http://www.bannockcounty.gov. Scroll down and click on “Agendas and Minutes” then click on the information packet for the meeting that you are interested in.)
About BOCC Meetings
The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) is comprised of the three elected County Commissioners: Ernie Moser (District 1, Chair), Jeff Hough (District 2), and Ken Bullock (District 3).
The BOCC generally meets twice a week: regular business meetings are on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. and work sessions are on Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. Meetings are generally held in the Commissioner’s Chambers at 624 E Center, Room 212, Pocatello, Idaho, unless otherwise noted. Times subject to change within 15 minutes of stated time.
During these meetings, the BOCC may: approve contracts, expend funds, hear testimony, make decisions on land use cases and take care of other County matters, and are open to the public.
