by Donna Emert

Is your county the richest, best educated, fastest growing in Idaho? Information is power. Ironically, finding accurate information in the age named for it can be a challenge. In their ongoing efforts to empower the people of Idaho by providing unbiased, research-based education and information, University of Idaho Extension and College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) faculty have developed resources to help people in 42 Idaho counties find and use data to describe what is happening in their communities.

The Data Tools for Understanding Communities project was conceived as a local planning tool in Teton County, when UI Extension Educator Ben Eborn put together a county-at-a-glance brochure to provide the region’s movers and shakers a clear picture of the county’s population, migration, income, housing costs, crime rate, and other economic trends since the 1970s.

“The county was changing so fast we wanted people to be able to quickly grasp the circumstances,” said Eborn. “Data is especially useful  to community planners and leaders. To make good decisions, you have to know where you’re at and where you’ve been.”

Eborn’s brochure is “a great resource to look at how things are  trending,” said Teton County Commissioner Mark Trupp. “At times people like to claim the sky is falling, that we are unique in facing a crisis. We need to be able to compare, for example, housing costs in the Boise Valley with our own. With this data we can identify statewide trends and see what issues pertain only to our county.”

Website distills Idaho, Northwest data

Idaho’s and neighboring states’ socioeconomic data went global with the help of UI Agricultural Economist Priscilla Salant, working with the Northwest Area Foundation.              

NWAF partners with Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Iowa, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota communities, providing technical assistance, information, and financial resources to fight poverty. Salant designed the NWAF Indicators Website—

www.indicators.nwaf.org—and her team updates demographic data and maps for all eight states as new government data becomes available.

Next step was connecting citizens with the data. “Stakeholders and decision makers need access to credible data,” said UI Extension Educator Mary Schmidt in Idaho County. “We felt UI Extension was positioned to provide that.”

Schmidt secured a grant and coordinated a community development team including UI Extension Educators Eborn; Sarah Howe, Boundary County; Sue Traver, Bonner County; Lyle Hansen, Jerome County; Barbara Bromley-Brody, Valley County; Garth Taylor, Moscow faculty; with researchers Christy Dearien and Debbie Gray. Together they developed materials to help tell each Gem State county’s story.

Dearien and Gray created 42 county-at-a-glance brochures based on Eborn’s original. They also wrote a Data Tools notebook with clear explanations of each indicator, including how to apply the data and how to access updates. They trained all UI Extension educators to use the tools.

Salant, Dearien, and Gray are identified on the NWAF site as “data mavens.” Around the office, Dearien has earned the slightly more regal  handle of “data queen.” She updates and manages the website. Gray is   mapmaker. Salant is the principal investigator. 

Data takes blinders off people

Barbara Bromley-Brody, new UI Extension Valley County educator, is a huge fan of the data mavens and their translation of economic concepts into laymen’s terms. She has used Data Tools extensively to make McCall area presentations.

“It kind of took the blinders off people,” she said. “In Valley County, we could see that we are not actually the fastest growing county in the state; that our average wage isn’t that bad; and housing is a little high.”

Bromley-Brody also used the data to help Valley County Commissioner Phil Davis deliver a fact-packed state of the county address. Another fan is John Blaye, Boise and Valley County economic development specialist. He has distributed hundreds of the brochures, “a very excellent publication,” to citizens, businesses, service clubs, and chambers of commerce. “We hope the program will continue,” said Blaye. “People want to know what’s happening.”

See Idaho data by counties: http://extension.ag.uidaho.edu/communitydevelopment/data_tools.htm

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