Ever Onward Podcast

The Website Every Idaho Taxpayer Should Know with Brandon Woolf | Ever Onward - Ep. 132

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 132

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What if every Idaho taxpayer could see exactly where public money is being spent?

On this episode of the Ever Onward Podcast, Tommy Ahlquist sits down with Brandon Woolf, Idaho State Controller, to discuss the groundbreaking work behind Transparent Idaho—the online platform that gives citizens unprecedented access to state and local government finances.

Brandon shares how a commitment to transparency has guided his leadership since taking office, why building trust in government matters more than ever, and how technology and AI are helping make public information more accessible and meaningful for Idahoans.

The conversation also goes beyond government. Brandon reflects on growing up on a dairy farm in Preston, the real-life inspiration behind Napoleon Dynamite, lessons learned from family and hard work, leadership, serving others, and why Idaho’s future remains incredibly bright.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:
• Transparent Idaho and government accountability
• Where Idaho tax dollars go
• Public payroll, budgets, and financial reporting
• AI and the future of state government
• Leadership, culture, and servant leadership
• Idaho’s Endowment Lands and natural resources
• Work ethic, family, and growing up in Preston
• Why optimism still matters in Idaho

Whether you’re interested in Idaho politics, government transparency, leadership, technology, or simply want to better understand how your state operates, this is a conversation every Idahoan should hear.

Explore Transparent Idaho for yourself at Transparent.Idaho.gov⁠ and discover where your tax dollars are being spent.

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Meet Brandon Woolf From Preston

SPEAKER_02

Today on the Ever Honor Podcast, we have Brandon Wolf. Brandon is the Idaho State Controller. He is an amazing guy from Preston, Idaho. He was appointed to the state controller by Butch Otter in 2012 and has served there since, winning elections in 2014, 2018, and 22. He's currently seeking another term. His big push has been transparency. He is the president of the National Association of State Auditors and Controllers and Treasurers, and he led a modernization of Idaho's financial, budget, procurement, human resources, and payroll systems. In addition to all of his accomplishments in state politics, he's probably one of the best humans on the planet. In fact, in preparation for this, I was talking to a couple of people who said they don't know anyone that's a better guy than uh Brandon Wolf. I'm really excited to have him on today, our state controller, Brandon Wolfe.

Napoleon Dynamite Skits And Small Town Life

SPEAKER_02

Brandon, the only good wolf in Idaho.

SPEAKER_00

How are you?

SPEAKER_02

I'm doing awesome. We're talking about Preston. Yes. Wanted to get the podcast rolling. Maddie Ray was just down. In the land of crumble cookies and Napoleon dynamite.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. You know, right? It is. Pedro and I had uh one thing in common. We were both student body president at Preston High School. I didn't know that. Yeah. So and and we really have to do the skits. So, like he came on and did the dance and the other. So we have to when you're running, you have to do some skits. So, of course, you got a backup.

SPEAKER_02

All right. So the skit on Napoleon Dynamite is really a thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, most everything on there is real things that happened. He grew up there, right? The director, yeah, Jared did.

SPEAKER_02

So he this was true, like he's like pulling in the culture. Exactly. So when you ran for student body president, you had to do a skit. We had to do a skit. So what was the skit, Randall? Um that's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01

No, I'm trying to think. There was two, you had to do one on Monday and you had to do one on Friday. And we did um, oh, what's the there's a song?

SPEAKER_00

Oh little red riding hood. You sure are looking good. You're everything a big bad wolf could want.

SPEAKER_01

And then you howl, so and then you would howl. Then I came out and then howls and had a fun time.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, that was so it makes I this this brings up stories. Um, so my best friend in high school was John Huber, and he ran for student body president. He was always very political. Uh-huh. He's the attorney uh general in Utah right now. Oh, yeah. Um, and he uh not the attorney general, uh he's the U.S. district attorney for Utah. But the skit we did, I don't know that we were required to do a skit, but it was Johnny and the inchworms. Okay. And it was his cabinet he was running because he had he planned it. He's like, I'll run for student body president and win, but then you'll be my cabinet. So I was an inchworm. I was not the lead guy, but we were dressed in tutos doing some sort of a dance behind him singing a song. But I can't remember what the song is. It wasn't as good as yours. Those would be great pictures to have with you. I think someone probably has pictures somewhere, but I've never seen him go.

SPEAKER_01

And I've never even told the story in whatever 40 years. Well, and the other one we had was that was back with Michael J. Fox and Teen Wolf. Oh, yeah. Remember him standing on the top of the van surfing? There you go. Of course, this is back before you know too much. So we rode around the high school and around town there in Preston, standing on top of the van with my friend.

SPEAKER_02

Whoever ran against you didn't even have a chance. Oh, it was it was fun. We had a great with Teen Wolf and that's great. That's great.

Grandkids And The Joy Of Family

SPEAKER_01

Um, how's Janilee? She's doing great, doing great. We just um had our second and third grandchildren back in April. I remember you telling me they were coming when I saw you, or they just just yeah, boys or girls? Two boys, um, one down in Logan, Utah, one up here in Boise. And uh it it's the best thing ever. Isn't it just pure magic?

SPEAKER_02

It is, it's just magic. I I didn't, you know, when grandpas or grandparents would come to you and like show you pictures of the kid, talk about them all the time, and you're like roll your yeah, like okay, whatever. And then then you become one of those. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

It's so how many do you have total? So we have three total. We have 22-month-old, and then the first of April and the end of April, and uh the the the best part, and maybe you've seen it with your children as well, is seeing them change and become parents, yeah. And it just like overnight to see the love that they have for their children, and and it was just amazing. And so uh to see my daughter and now see my son, daughter-in-law, and then just to see that change happen and just see their love that they have and what they care. It's just awesome, very special.

SPEAKER_02

I I told the story on this here before, but I but I remember specifically when Brooklyn had our first grandson cash, I remember just holding her and just like bawling and saying, Now you know how much I love you. Because until you have right that it's so cool. Yeah, I um our we have three, six, four, and and twenty-two months. Okay, but the twenty-two-month old her name's Poppy Jane, and she so we were just up in Alaska uh on a trip, and she would FaceTime almost every day. But I'm getting to the point of this, she is she brings so much joy. So I'm up there with my dad and my brother-in-law, and she would FaceTime me, and then she would ask for Cody, and then she would ask for my dad, and like it's the highlight, like the magic is just it never stops. And you look forward to that.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, sweetest little thing. But I'm sure she's got you wrapped around the fingers.

SPEAKER_02

It's just awesome.

SPEAKER_01

And then not to take away from the boys, right?

SPEAKER_02

And the fun you have there, not to take away from the boys, but I know there's something about these little girl grands that are just something else. So special, though. So special. That's that's awesome. It's fun, it's so fun, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

It's I guess that's why we sit there from a faith base of just saying how much how special that is, and what that means of being able to have that, have that generation, what families mean to us, and and the love that we share with one another. It means so much of being able to carry it on, have that relationship, and continue that. And then getting together as family, you know, the love I still have, you know, my parents, my siblings, keep being able to be with them, yeah. The love, the laughter, the joking, the fun. Yeah, we're we're huge sports fans, and so it's a matter, you know. I know big Dodger fans, so we're trying to figure away. Hope my dad doesn't ever listen to this, but we're trying to figure a way for his 80th birthday this year to get him down to uh what's his team? The Dodgers.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you gotta get him down, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So Chavez Ravine. Yeah, so his license plate is Vince Goley. It is, yeah, and then my brother has Dodgers, but he does the number five instead of the S because someone already has that. But so, but we're like a well, it would be, I guess, five generations of Dodger fans, too. So but uh it's been a few, it's been a good run.

SPEAKER_02

We've got a lot of injuries right now, though. We do. I've I've only missed about five games this this year so far watching them on TV, and I just but uh I think we'll be okay. But that's awesome. Yeah, so your dad's gonna be 80. Well, so our our dads are my dad just turned 79, so they're okay about the same

Work Ethic From Farms And Fathers

SPEAKER_02

age. Yeah, how's his health?

SPEAKER_01

Uh not the best. Really? Yeah, so um, like I said, grew up there on a dairy farm down in Preston, but he hauled milk most of his career, his life, um, and then uh retired. They served a uh LDS mission in South Africa and then came back and started hauling grain. Had a really bad uh accident there loading from a rail car into his semi and uh basically broke every bone from his hip down to his ankle. Oh wow, caught in the conveyor, and he had just had his knee replaced a month before on his other knee, and so mobility because his mobility has really just gone downhill, but uh anyway. But no, the mine's sharp, everything else there.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes the motor slows down a little bit before, but it's uh uh I just spent the last my dad's very, very healthy, so he's 79, but he just worked uh six. I mean, people are gonna roll their eyes and say, No way he did this. But he worked like 16 hours a day. We we remodel the whole place up there over we had really about a week to do septic tank, drain filled, raise the buildings, demo the buildings, 3,500 square feet of ton of groove, put it in a bathroom, put it in a shower, and do all the electrical. And he outworked all like yesterday, I was done. Like I I like dropped down on a chair and I just said, Dad, I'm done. And he was still like, I gotta let's go, I gotta go wire up three more boxes. But my point of telling you this is I honestly like I I took a bunch of pictures of him. I got my phone, my he doesn't know I took him. I just took a I took a I took probably 40 pictures of him on the table saw and hunchover doing the electrical. And I got but I made sure that like at every point along the way I got uh pictures of us because I thought, oh man, I just can't even I can't imagine a day in my life where I don't just have I call him and just say, hey man, what's up, right? Right. You know, I just I I know someday it's gotta happen. I mean it's life, but I I can't imagine a day without it.

SPEAKER_01

And then you sit there and take that work value that he's had and that he's taught you and that you've passed down. But it seems like that generation, there's a couple generations where that value of work is maybe different. I'll put it that way. I think I think so. And and I don't know what we need to do on that to help from that standpoint to sit there and say, you know, my dad, he doesn't have any hobbies, his hobby was working, right? Yeah, and sounds like for your dad as well, right? What does he know other to do?

SPEAKER_02

It's so it's so weird because I've I've had people say to me, like, I've been showing I I got back like late last night, so I've been showing all these pictures. It we should have done like a reality show of what we did because it you wouldn't believe we did it in like seven days, but they're like your dad? Like that's like the craziest thing. Why did you why did you I'm like he wouldn't have been happy doing anything else, and and and just today I called, I said, Hey, are you doing okay? Are you recovering okay? And he's like, That was the greatest week of my life. And I'm like, gosh, I wish you to your point, like that's just that's his hobby, coming to work every day and doing stuff. It's it's a it's great. It's I think we probably took it for granted, guys like us, because we we didn't know anything different other than that's what you do. Right. You grind, you work, just go at it. I think I was a good example of that, but I look at my kids and like their kids, and I think the world's just easier now, softer.

SPEAKER_01

Whatever, yeah, something along those lines. And I uh you know, I wish everyone could grow up on the farm to get up at 4 30 to milk, do chores, do everything, and then come home from school, milk again, go do the rest of the chores, move the piece.

SPEAKER_02

Tell us a little bit about that, because I think families that grew up on dairies was just a different deal, right? Yes, pre-automation, yes.

SPEAKER_01

This is just we had I've heard this a hundred times, like the cows don't milk themselves, right? And they don't turn off on the weekends and on holidays. So yeah, um, but you know, it was along the line of we joked about never having a curfew, and they're like, You didn't have a curfew? Like, well, it doesn't matter. You've got to get up at 4:30 and milk. So if you want to stay out late, that's on you. Yeah, but you gotta be up at 4 30. So learned that lesson very early on. And when I tell the teenagers that now, they're like, That's so cool you didn't have curfew. I said, Well, let me finish telling the rest of the story. But I think it's that value, you know, and um, you know, it was my two cousins that I grew up with, my grandpa. I I have the best relation that I had growing up with my grandpa. And my dad and my uncle did a lot of work outside because my dad was hauling milk, and my uncle worked for the do uh USDA doing soil. So it was us three cousin, us three boys, and my grandpa. And I had the most incredible relationship with him. Um and then you know, my cousin left to uh serve a mission, and then I and then so we just everything kind of sold and did from there. But the lesson I just wish now that my kids could have gone back and worked on the summer or gone to you know hungry experience of hauling hay. I have hay fever. So you're like, so I love to be out in the field rather than be in the barn because I would sneeze like crazy, and so you know, I was like, I'll be outside, I'll do out there, and so it's a little bit more fresh air, but my record is 17 sneezes. So, but man, I it's just that part of uh how do you get people? It seems like the gaming and everything else, and just like okay, shut it off, go outside, get in trouble, ride your bike around. You just don't see that and have that, and that change of life. And you can't force that, and I don't know if we can, but

Curating Unplugged Moments That Matter

SPEAKER_01

in the sense of how do we still instill that mentality of work and ethic that way?

SPEAKER_02

You can't force it, but can you this is gonna sound bad, but I I honestly like sometimes I think about I can't force it, but can I make sure that I manufacture or I create or I curate, probably is a better word to curate. How do I create that time where we're without electronics, we're in those situations where you can I I I remember I remember distinctive like conversations with my grandpa under stars, sitting sitting on a chair at a campfire, or he had this old he had this old it was an old crappy white van with a blue carpet in it, and we would go camping in this thing. And I remember laying uh you know under the stars with him and my his, you know, my grandma and my cousin, my cousin was a year younger than me. My uncle was younger than me, Josh. And he would testify of things like and it would it would just grip you because you're staring at stars together, and he was talking about Jesus and God and how to build be and how to live and how to and so I'm thinking, do I even have those moments if I don't curate them?

SPEAKER_01

Right. I and I think that's maybe your point there. Yeah, curator build that culture, build that opportunities, and maybe how do you start with at least what you can control, right? I mean, you're teaching your your two grandsons, your granddaughter.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm trying, and I and like Maddie, Ray, he's taking my grandkids and like he's going camping this weekend, but we were talking about I said, why don't you just go to the Catamic Collie? He's like, No, I want to go camping because I want him to be able to so so those are the things like no, I want it to be I want it to be I want it to be a little more raw than the normal thing. Right. I think I think we all do the best we can, but I and I think we all get old and nostalgic, but and I probably our parents did the same with us, but there's so many good things in our life. I I think it's nice to have gratitude for where you came from, and I think it's nice to have um recognition of the heritage and legacy that we came from. So I think it's pretty normal to want to share that.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's a great point there of being able to carry that forward, be grateful for that, live that legacy that they had, and not forget it, but maybe make that new one.

SPEAKER_02

Make that new one, but make some of the elements that made it impactful, yeah, make them happen in our own lives. So true. That's awesome.

What The State Controller Actually Does

SPEAKER_02

Hey, um, I read your bio already before the intro, but um but you've been in now for I didn't realize it had been that long. It's been a couple years. It's been a while. And you just went through a primary, yeah. Um and uh, you know, you'll be serving another term. Well, I hope so. Come November. Yeah, you'll we're in Idaho, Brad. But um, but as uh as controller, I think it would be good to just it's a big role. Right. And I love, I love, love, love what you do on transparency. Thank you. Um you're responsible for how the government runs, spends money, reports money. It's a big responsibility, and I s and I simply love what you've done professionally for the state. Um you're you're one of the I told I told Phil when you recover, I said, well, Brandon's here later today. He's like, oh, he's the nicest guy I've ever and I like everyone that knows you knows that about you, but you're also incredibly professional, and the way you've done stuff has been incredible. So talk a little bit about your successes and what you've done in your time. Yeah, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01

You know, if it's gone by so fast. Um Janilee and I both grew up there in Preston, went to Utah State. We moved up here 29 years ago and started as an intern there at the controller's office. And who knew that, you know, 29 years later, this is where I'd be sitting, you know, at that in that seat. Um and it was such an honor to be that, you know, had different roles and responsibilities. I was the chief to Donna Jones, the previous one. Uh, she was in that horrible car accident, and and Governor Otter appointed me to finish her term back in 2012. And here we are 14 years later. Um, and I I think uh, you know, the biggest push has been um from that day one was always looking trust in government, it just continues to erode and go down. And what was our opportunity at the controller's office where we we pay all the employees, we we pay all the bills. Uh it's it is a large organization, 37,000 employees, 15 billion dollars from a wide variety of occupations and roles health and welfare to corrections, state police, fish and game ag forest, at lands. I mean, there's so much going on and different uniquenesses. But the key part there was what's our role? Small little controller's office, 120 employees, how do we help and how do we fit our role to build trust? So there's a there's a report that shows the trust in federal government, how many citizens truly believe that or feel that their government's doing the right thing? And in 1964, it was um no excuse, yeah, it was 77 percent. So 77%, 1964. And then today, 11%. And I'd be curious, who are the 11% that say that their federal government's doing the right thing? But how do we, from a financial standpoint, what is that role and perspective of saying how do we help people feel trust or build that trust because it's eroded? And I there's so many fun stories we could talk about, you know, the toxicity in the world and in in government, the the partisanship and the fights and here and there. What could we do? And so it's back to that curating we talked earlier. I think of building that culture, building that right thing to help build that trust, and it was truly opening the books.

Inside Transparent Idaho And Public Payroll

SPEAKER_01

So we opened up the state books first, had all the financial.

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna yeah, I'm um so people watching on YouTube, we're gonna pull this up. Um, because I think it's unbelievable what you've done. It's really cool. And so for everyone listening, if you haven't done this, yes, it's fun to just go take a drive. Oh, it is, it's super fun. I mean, it's so informational. And I and I one of the things I wanted to do with you is dude, transparent.

SPEAKER_01

Idaho.gov.

SPEAKER_02

So transparent.ideho.gov for those of you that are listening and not watching. There you go. And there it is. So welcome to Transparent Idaho.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And and walk us through some of the great stuff you've done here. I've looked at most of it, but take us through it.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. So one of the key things, um, if you go back up to the scroll to the top there, one of the biggest things that uh um everyone loves to look at is payroll information. Oh, yeah. What's everyone make is their pay rate? And so we put that little um search bar there. Um you go back in, there's the pay rates. But in that um, if you go over to the right there, just a little bit, there's that gray box that says State Workforce. And you can type in there, say um type controller. And now you've got the controller's office, you've got the job controller, you've got anyone that has controller name. So you could do all these searches, um, job searches, or actually pull open. If you go back to the top and select controller's office, I stay there and click that one. Now you'll have every single one of my employees and what their pay rates as of last night. Yeah. And so um the part was 98% of the people that come to our website want to come and look at what payroll, and that's public information. Yeah, and that's the key part is we've always wanna say make public information public.

SPEAKER_02

So as long the the theory is as long as it's public anyway, make it as easily accessible to get the trust in correctly. We're not hiding anything, we're the ones that are transparency-based. And and transparency is what garners that trust.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. So some of the other things we have in there, we build a page for every state agency. So you can click there, uh, click on that state agency, that capital building, and scroll down, and it'll come down. And now let's click on Boise State University. Over on the right, it says explore more. We build a page for every single state agency. There's 80 of them. You'll scroll through there, you'll see their budget, their expenditures, their actuals.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so for people listening, we just clicked up. So we just went to state agency Boise State. Go up a little farther. It starts by giving you a graph and it kind of outlays all the stuff. Go down a little bit for me, Maddie. And then here is uh a detailed report of the annual budget for Boise State and where all the last last six, seven years on there.

SPEAKER_01

I'm getting a little older, Tommy, that's trying to see the uh the font there, but I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_02

Amen. I'm just seeing like there we go.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for us old guys here in the room back to 2020, so COVID, which makes a fun, interesting thing too.

SPEAKER_02

And I love how interactive it is, too. Uh it's really, really well done. Thank you. Yeah, and I know it's probably been a tremendous amount of time to make sure that it works. You have a great team, too. Great team.

SPEAKER_01

This is your chance to give them a shout out. A huge shout out. I I love to say I have the best state agency in government. Yeah, you can sit there and say, and I don't know how. You never judge that, but I say that, then they believe it. Yeah. And just sit there and build out.

SPEAKER_02

Well, Phil McGrain told me that when he hired Joe Paris, he brought goats in the Capitol. So he did. I don't know if I can stop bringing real goats in. I don't know. It was a hilarious conversation.

SPEAKER_01

But and and then uh let's go. Let's go. So if you go to workforce, let's scroll down here. Who's the highest paid state employee? Now you'll probably know this because you work a little closely with these individuals and you've met them and good friends with them. The highest state employee is going to be Spencer Danielson. So let's scroll down just two little um a couple more uh reports, one more after employee count. Scroll down on that one. There we go.

SPEAKER_02

Highest paid head coach boy state.

SPEAKER_01

Spencer Danielson. Coach Rice.

SPEAKER_02

Coach Rice.

SPEAKER_01

Then the offensive defensive coordinators, and then you got President Green from U of I and so forth, Jeremiah Dickey.

SPEAKER_02

Jeremiah should make more money than that. Jeremiah, if you're listening, and I vote your number one. That guy's incredible. He's a go-getter. He is a go-getter.

SPEAKER_01

This is awesome. So here's the fun part. We built this report. It used to be all employees that make more than the governor. So that's really what this report is. So this is just the screen here, but if you scroll just a little bit up, just a titch there on the screen, it says in the middle, right above it says access detail report. If you were to click on that, it actually opens up and then you can see all 700 employees that make more than the governor.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow. So Brad Brad needs a raised too. Uh no, this is great. And then and then uh go back up top because there's a couple of things that I think.

SPEAKER_01

If you go to um So one of the things let me just share with you, Tommy. So we always had the state data. Yeah. Because we have that information in our and my vision was I'd love to have our site have all the cities. Yes. All the counties, all the school districts, all the taxing districts. When did you add this? So we added the counties at first, probably I want to say probably 2020 around that time frame. We just started with the counties and then we slowly added cities. And then maybe about last year we added uh education in the school district data.

SPEAKER_02

I hadn't well, I guess I just hadn't noticed the education data and this and the city data as robust as it was. Because and you had like do you have Transparency Tuesday or something?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, to do that. Yes, you have Transparency 2 to C, and one of them I clicked on and then I went and dove deep. And this was a few months ago. But anyway, if you haven't looked at transparentIdaho.gov, I would suggest anyone, it's just fascinating to look. And again, I think share that with anybody that that that there's just such a there's such a mistrust.

SPEAKER_01

Well, in the world we live in, it's it's just strange right now. And I think the key part here is understand the context behind it. Yeah. There's there's always a story. This is a tool. You work in your teams, your developers, your construction, having a hammer, it's a tool. It can build things, but it can also tear things down. Electricity, water, power, fire, it how it's used, it can be used incorrectly. I you say the same thing. This is a tool. Understand the context. So sometimes there's a story behind why it's taking place. Yeah. So sometimes an activist will come on and I got a gotcha here, and I've found this now, and they've done this and this. But I always say, understand the full story and the context behind it. That's great. That's great

Leadership Lessons On People And Culture

SPEAKER_01

stuff. Um, what's the hardest part of your job? Oh, I think it's it's still the people. I remember talking to uh a great mentor, and I he was no longer working downtown, and I says, What was the best part? And he says, The people. And he says, What's the hardest part? The people. Who's your mentor? Well, this one in this case was it was Chuck Winder, and he just made a great comment. You know, Benny Searce has been a great mentor. Um, and and just said, it's the human element. Isn't Chuck Winder a great guy? He's a wonderful man.

SPEAKER_02

So he is a genuine and and you know, I got I got lucky, so he's part of Operation Military Blessings with Tom Westall that started it, and so they raise money and help um newly enlisted military members with family basic needs. But anyway, on his board, Chuck is one of his board members, and now is now the president just took over for Tom, and then uh Dirk Kempthorne was on it. Um, anyway, incredible group of people, but I'm getting to a long point here. I somehow got lucky enough to get on their tech string. And oh my goodness, it's just my love for Chuck Winder and that group of men went through the roof because they're just such good people, and watching who they pray for, yeah, and who they worry about and how they live their lives and with integrity, right? Oh gosh. I just I I just uh I I've always been a huge Chuck Winder fan. I love love him so much, but but getting on that text screen's taking it to a new level. It's I just think uh I want to just not say anything so they don't know I'm on there. Yeah, because I don't want to lose that. Like I don't I don't believe it that get kicked off to kill kids things.

SPEAKER_01

It's awesome. It's really awesome. But anyway, that from that standpoint, I think that's really I remember him, you know, was no longer there in the Senate, and I said, you know, what are you gonna miss? What's the best part? What's the worst? And he said, I love the working with people, but it was also the hardest part. And I I share the same thing of I remember learning in a lesson in my MBA said the best thing is never hire a problem. And so, from a standpoint of a good, rigorous hiring process to get the best employee, and sometimes you may be a little more picky on that front part. And we're a little bit different in a constitutional office, we don't have to go through all the um the merit-based system, the other state agencies, and so we can hire who we want. Again, we still try to the best and appropriate, but from the standpoint of hiring and making that never hire a problem as a great lesson. I remember learning and you don't have to do that on the back end and performance, and I guess just sharing the love and empowering and having innovation. I think the biggest thing we have going forward is um giving them the tools. I think maybe where the resources and the limitation on resources where we have to go and ask for appropriations to the legislature. It's been a tough, you know, year or two, but tightening the belt, and I think we are all doing that, and how do we be better that way? But I sit there and say, how do we create that innovative mindset and culture in the office that we can power through? Now you don't expect that in the government agency, but we were pushing that so hard. We had an off-site meeting um the other day with our our management team, and we spent almost half of it talking about how do we set ourselves up with uh AI in the controller's office to be a benefit for other state agencies, the state employees, and all citizens.

SPEAKER_02

How are uh I was I'm I got two questions. Yeah, I'm gonna get to the AI question, but before you get off that, I think one of the things you're known for is your leadership. And I and I know you just talked about Chuck being a mentor. You're a mentor to many. I mean, there's just so many people look up to you. Um if you had to kind of list, you kind of just did it, but I'm gonna make you rewind a little bit. Sure. Let's list as as someone that people look up to, Brandon, as as one of the great leaders, what are what are some of your top two or three things that you'd say are are key to leadership?

SPEAKER_01

I think you have to, from a leadership standpoint, is I I truly come back to being a servant and being in the sense of um given that vision, that direction, and there's nothing I'm gonna ask my staff to do or team to do that I'm not willing to do myself. And you say for yourself, okay, if it's going doing that electrical box, you'll get down on your knees and do it. Yeah. Oh, look, Tommy's doing that. Well then I I I'm not, you know, I'm a head superintendent. I don't need to do that. I tell others to do that. I remember having a person that had cancer in our office and throwing up and having issues and being able to go in and help and take care, you know, doing it, fixing a tire on the side of the row. It's being able to show that a servant, but I think it's also truly giving that vision. Here's where our North Star is, that's where we're heading. I'll give you the resources. I want to make you successful. I'll be your and you know, another great friend always says, Hey, we'll be the trap, we'll be that safety net. You may fall off, get back up on there, and we'll help you keep being successful. And so I think uh, and bringing a positive, the glass is always full.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. I love all three of those. So I think those are the you know, I'm I'm a little follow-up on those. So I think the the servant leader thing, I think my dad has a great example. He's the best example of that. He's like, lead always, use words when necessary, and I just come just come off that time up there with him. I mean, first guy up, last guy to bed every day. It's hard, like when you're trying to lead a team with a week to get everything done, you're like, hey, the 79-year-old guy is working harder than all of us. Yeah. So that was a great example of that. The positive attitude thing is like, hey, that's what's contagious. And then the last thing, your delegation thing, I think shadow leadership, people don't understand. I I think as you grow older, it's harder to do. Yes. It's way easier just to take the reins and say, I can get it done so much faster. But it's so much more rewarding and productive building your team if you can shadow lead, follow up, report back, follow up, report back, lead the witness a little bit. Yeah, here's how to be successful. And and but but over time, man, the fruits of that are are so rewarding.

SPEAKER_01

It is. I I think the art of delegation is a lost art, and I think it it takes a special thing. And I am nowhere near an expert, and I don't claim that. And I constantly look, how can I be better at that? Yeah, how am I given the right instructions, the right clarifications, the right expectations, the right resources, so that they're not even, you know, they're set for success to begin with. If not, they're gonna fail already. So how do you and there's a difference obviously of a leader versus a manager, right? We always

AI In Government With Humans In Loop

SPEAKER_01

learn that from the things we say. There's a difference in not trying to be a manager, but be a true leader. Yeah. Love that.

SPEAKER_02

Now I've been I skipped over AI. How are you, how are you, I can imagine in your role, because it's different for every it's different for every job set, but I'm watching the acceleration of AI as a tool for improved productivity. Yes. I can see in your world it having lots of application.

SPEAKER_01

Truly it does. So, you know, Tommy, one of the um I was talking with a good friend this morning, and he said in his company, he said he had a directive with the top CEO came in and said back in May and said, we want everything on and done by June. AI, everything, or we're gonna be left behind. And so I think from the standpoint where government or controller think, oh no, we're we're 10 steps behind, we're a year behind. Usually government is, but how can we push forward and be that innovative mindset? And so um, our standpoint is there's so much that what we do, and the limited resources, it's being able to help us. And so it's creating that innovation, creating that mindset of go into it. And sometimes, you know, in the world we hear a lot of times fail, fail fast, move on, get to the next thing, iterate, move, move. We do payroll on account, we need to be accurate so we can't mess up. But we've created uh we had an incredible team member, just brilliant. We lost him today, it was his last day. And he's going back over to Borin's Clearwater Analytics. They they stole him and and you know, we can't compete with pay that way, but he was incredible. And shout out to Mitch and the knowledge he had with AWS and doing all these things, he built our own private AI tool. So the standpoint of we can stand up all this data, because transparent Idaho, that's all public information. But how do we look for fraud, waste, and abuse or other anomalies that we can do some stuff with PII, private uh personal identifiable information? How do we do all this to help an agency? How can we use data analytics to help other state agencies? And how does that make us better? We have a couple of team members, they're not tech at all, but they've built some things, and we even had a hackathon. We spent two days, our 15 developers, and said, we've got use cases that we can use within our office that will be available for all state employees. And we made it a competition. We had these guys build in two and two, and then these other four teams they were going against each other, and it was so fun. The uh the joke their their supervisor says it smells like a locker room in here, is even with these guys eating their Cheetos and Diet Coke all night. But they had a hackathon, everything AI, and they built the most incredible tools. So they did it on Wednesday and the Thursday, and then I got to see it on Friday, their end product. And now we're gonna be able to roll that out here in the next couple weeks. It's incredible, isn't it? Yeah, it's possible. It's possible.

SPEAKER_02

I if you would have if you would have asked me six months ago for your company, like six months ago, end of last year, what are the ways you can use it? And I would have probably had a list of three or four things. We've got some really smart young guys, like rock star young guys, and I am shocked what they're doing with it. I'm shocked on on all levels in our accounting department, property management department, legal, yeah, performance. I mean, I'm just shocked, but but it's like you did that how? And how fast you take a brilliant, smart young kid who knew Excel up and down and inside and out, an analyst, and you give them those tools. It's it's it's I'm I'm now going, okay. It's like rocket fuel. I mean, it's I'm starting to get this that you still need the person, yes, human in the loop. You still need a human in the loop, and you still need the prompts, you still need the analysis to verify garbage, garbage out kind of stuff. But but the productivity of once I set get my model set, and now I'm having AI make the changes to the model or the inputs of the model and spit spit out specifically. I'm like going, oh wow. I get this. And I do, I do think, I think if you don't figure it this out, you're gonna get left behind because I think I think it's the pace at which AI is changing and the pace at which businesses are adopting, leading edge businesses are adopting, right? It'll be one of the greatest separators of all time.

SPEAKER_01

I it appears it's heading that way. It truly is. And I think there's some employees fear if you're like, am I gonna lose my job? We put in a new big system and we said no one's gonna lose their job. We'll repurpose you, reskill you, upscale you, and make you do something else. The same thing I think with this AI is like, okay, in our purpose, how do we repurpose the staff? Like, okay, maybe we don't need that. We're not filling this one, we're gonna move it over here to something else to do some other testing and other work. So and that's the opportunities that what it provides is uh you look at uh um software companies. If you have someone else that can build one of them, their things was a billing system. He built it front end that one of our developers built it front end over those two days on that hackathon. Imagine how long that would have taken. How much money that would have taken two years ago? Yes, it would have taken six months at a minimum. How many, you know, hundred thousand, whatever, I don't know. And sit there and now he did that. And then we even joked about well, how many tokens did you use to because they had that as part of their qualifier, like how many tokens did they use to spend on and building that? And so it was fascinating. And and but I see I think software comp other companies are gonna say, how is this gonna replace what they're offering and how they have to stay ahead of that to repurpose and add value? What are they going to do to add value to the work that they're doing? Because it's gonna change and just stay ahead of the game.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. What's

Pushback On Transparency And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_02

next? What's next for um well?

SPEAKER_01

Our part is we're we're looking to you, how do we use AI even in transparent Idaho?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Say, you know, you're a great businessman, and and there's so many here in the community. How do we make it that this works well for you? And and what how does this benefit you?

SPEAKER_02

So you're sitting there and say, I how does I think I mean I think what where I've gone to transparent Idaho is when I'm going to try to make a use case because I'm a developer for ROI. Right. Okay, here's the money you're spending. And and and sometimes it's not my main job. We're we started a thing, um, an initiative for it's for second chance hiring for people coming out of prison with recidivism. And and I've that's where I've gone. I said, Oh, I'm gonna go to Brandon's website because I'm gonna go see how much we spend on corrections right now. Right. And we've had Bree Derrick on, she was fantastic, by the way. Great, direct. Fantastic. Um, but but the the point was, well, what are we spending currently? Well, all I needed to do was go there. But if I had a but it's all accessible. So I in theory I could tell AI, hey, go to transparent Idaho, look at what we're spending on this. If we were able to reduce recidivism by this percent, what would we save? I think those are the ways when you're making use case scenarios with that that that that just instantaneous.

SPEAKER_01

So exactly. Uh so for example, you say, hey, I want you to compare Ada County, the Canyon County to Twin Falls County, how much have they spent on law enforcement over the last three years? Yeah, and just and we've spend EP. Per capita, exactly. How much does a city spend on XYZ? So those are things from the standpoint of helping um the business community, making this more impactful for them. We're looking to add uh financial health. Yeah. How is a city, uh county, a municipality, what is their financial? Do they have a lot of debt or do they have a lot of savings? Where are they at?

SPEAKER_02

I've got an interesting question for you because I think the answer is no. But from the moment I've gotten to know you and know that just transparency thing was your thing, have you had any pushback in Idaho from people who don't want to be transparent? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01

You have? Yeah, yeah. It's from the standpoint, um, and and that's a great thing. And to sit there and say, if you're pushing back, are you hiding from something, right? And and I can I'm not saying they're hiding from it. And I don't think they are.

SPEAKER_02

But it's interesting because because uh because it is public, but maybe it's harder to find, so and therefore you're maybe a little safer from scrutiny. I don't know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

You know that some pushback. Yeah, there was, and there's some on still don't like you know, having their payroll information out there. It's public information. Yeah, you're filling out an invoice, the citizens are paying their taxes, your hard sacred dollars to pay for you. Yeah, um, and then there's been some others where it's been a little tough of uh saying what they want out there uh and keeping it at a higher summary level, maybe not at a transactional level, but that's you know, I want to continue to push to get that. We've invested so much in education the last four or five years. So, where has that money gone to? Has it gone to administration? Has it gone to instruction? Um, and so that's one of my my second other things is to have from an education standpoint, I can compare school district to school district or school to school and say, okay, how's Mountain View done to Oahee versus Mackey or Preston High School or Pokey? That's awesome. How do they compare it? And where has that money gone? Um and so being able to have that, that's where we're looking for the future. Um there's one thing of having there's millions of hundreds of millions of rows of data on there.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But how do you make that consumable and easy and pull that out?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and valuable to the to the end user.

SPEAKER_01

Because otherwise it's just the data. No, so how do you make that meaningful and and helpful to the user? And then back to the beginning of how does that build trust? Yeah. And so you say government, but then also financial, because everyone's like, well, either trust or you don't trust that person.

Endowment Lands Policy And Critical Minerals

SPEAKER_02

One of the great things I was just thinking about you too is you you get a you get a seat at the table as one of the constitutional officers of the state, and you've been there longer than anyone, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Lieutenant Governor, or he was lieutenant governor, yeah. So Brad was Lieutenant Governor one before, but as on the land board, yeah, the longest serving on the land board, which is a uh, you know, it's a great to be able to do that. That's the counting payroll, that's you know, that's Idaho Code, that's statue and find that. But being on the land board is a fun experience because it's policy, yeah. And being able to help, um, you know, and that fits closely of so much in the business community, too, of helping our children, it's the beneficiaries of public schools. And so I think there's a that's a big education point of what are our endowment lands. Public lands is a great discussion. We could go for another two or three hours on that, but we won't. But it's a valuable thing of how do we help the citizens understand what Idaho endowment lands are. Yeah, what are public or U.S. Forest Service. We're so blessed to have Tom Schultz, our forest chief, yeah, Biel Elm, then all these things, but recreation is a big thing. We have all these people who've moved into the state. How do we help them understand what these endowment lands mean? And so we have a great thing coming up here with a land exchange possible up in McCall. Um, and so we're trying to get some more information on that and getting that out to the community to get input. It's changing, uh exchanging 16,000 acres there all around Payette Lake for a possibility, 100,000, 150,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service. And so it's changing that. There's water quality, there's fire, there's development, there's recreation. So there's a lot that goes into it. And it it's how often do you meet? We meet monthly. Monthly. The third uh Tuesday of every month.

SPEAKER_02

That's that's got to be really fun and intriguing to be part of that. And be on part of as long as you have. Well, and that's a blessing, right?

SPEAKER_01

You know, because with with wisdom comes a lot of you know, experience and yeah, now I feel like I'm starting to get my legs under me a little bit, understand a little bit, and you know what's triple net or what's this or that in the in the construction or uh development world, because that's a big piece too, what we have. Um timber is is a big piece. Agriculture, the fun thing I remember someone told me is ATM. That's where our money comes. This comes from the ground. Agriculture, timber, and mining. And those are big things. Critical mine uh minerals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's changing a lot in Idaho, too, right? With with the with the pressure internationally for having the sovereignty of resources for the minerals that we're gonna need for all this this technology.

SPEAKER_01

And how much that environmental regulation, that pendulum, you know, probably what was decades ago or a hundred years ago, where it was free for all of how we mined and did stuff to the pendulum swung so hard to regulate and couldn't do anything to take care, and now it's so tight. Now, how do we swing that back to be that right size of being able to have the speed of business be the right thing there? And so, how do we help? And you know, like Stibnite up at Yellow Pine and Anemony, gold, the silver, the there's so many that are popping up, and they say what's amazing. Uh, I was talking with some of the miners, and they're saying the best place to find gold out of some of these minerals is at the old places.

SPEAKER_02

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Because the the technology is so incredible now that they can find from the pilings that there's still so much there from years past that they have the technology and equipment and engineering that they can find it now from the old places. So you're seeing those pop up.

SPEAKER_02

Well, for a dairy kid from Preston, Brandon, what an incredible story.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, well, thank you, and thanks for your leadership here.

SPEAKER_02

You're a you're you're the best guy, man. I appreciate you and your family. You're just you're an unbelievable guy. I it's been great having you on.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Any any parting thoughts?

Optimism For Idaho And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01

You know, I think it's uh Idaho's a great state, and uh people have moved here because we do great things, and I think uh we'll keep that positivity. We'll say the glass is still full. Uh yeah, there's struggles here and there, but I think if we keep showing and working together, we can find those solutions, whether it's the growth, it's the water, it's the fire. I don't know if we can do anything about getting more snow, but but there's different things, and I think uh things are looking great for Idaho. We may have still our challenges and stuff, but I think how do we how do we position ourselves? And maybe we'll close this back to what we started with with our children, grandchildren of how do we continue to make this a better place for what they can live and raise their families. And and I truly still believe that. I I love that, and I think being that optimist from that standpoint, we we can get there. Amen. Yeah, thanks, brother. Thank you, appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity.