BOISE - Gov. Butch Otter on Tuesday literally applauded state Sen. Shawn Keough's efforts to try to get Idaho agencies to make more efficient use of public transportation dollars.

After Keough's Tuesday afternoon presentation to the Interagency Working Group for public transportation, the governor - during an unannounced appearance in the Capitol's fourth-floor Senate Majority Caucus Room - started the applause.

"Good job!" Otter said.

In an interview, Keough said: "My impression of Gov. Otter (is) he's always interested in making government work better. And that's what this is all about. And that's a concept he has always championed."

Keough during her speech called for re-energizing the public transportation improvement efforts of the 1990s that extended through the passage of a Senate bill Keough sponsored in 2000. That measure that's now law, she said, was designed to better utilize "our scarce public transportation dollars," in Idaho.

"I'm hoping that by being here today, and I appreciate the invitation, that I can spur this conversation again, 14 years later, and see where the next chapter is for us," Keough, a Sandpoint Republican, told the gathering.

Keough said that in December she had invited the GOP governor, along with agency officials - including Idaho Transportation Department Director Brian Hess - to the meeting.

Keough said the interagency group's work includes looking at the possibility of metropolitan transportation agencies in Idaho sharing financial resources with rural communities where public transit may be sparse or non-existent.

But an agency employee filtering out of the Tuesday meeting said that Idaho law in their case prohibits that pooling of resources.

"And, I said, 'Well bring it to me and I'll see if we can change it,'" Keough said. "And, that's what the interagency working group was supposed to be about. So, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get back towards what the goals were."

Not that much has been done to improve public transportation in Idaho in the 14 years since Keough's legislation - signed by then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne - became law, she said.

"Not as much as could, from my perspective," Keough said. "There has been a lot of work, but more could be done."