COEUR d'ALENE - The second week of the Idaho legislative session got underway Monday with committees teeing up some controversial issues they'll begin to whack this week.

The House State Affairs Committee voted 10-6 on Monday against 14-year-old Ilah Hickman's plan to establish the Idaho giant salamander as the state's official amphibian.

An Idaho attorney general's opinion advised lawmakers that approving the salamander as a state symbol wouldn't do anything in the way of encouraging federal protections. But lawmakers remained wary.

"My whole concern is potential federal overreach," said Rep. Don Cheatham, R-Post Falls. "In North Idaho we have the water litigation going. I just am in fear that something could be impacted if it became an endangered species."

Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d'Alene, said she appreciated the attorney general's assurances, but said there was nothing stopping the federal government from protecting the species, either.

"There is no legal impediment to doing so," she said. "I really appreciate the excellent presentation you have done for this animal and this bill, but as a North Idaho legislator, I keep remembering the devastation to jobs and industry by a very friendly spotted owl."

Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, co-sponsored Hickman's bill and said designating a state symbol had nothing to do with endangered species.

"We addressed that," Ward-Engelking said. "We got an opinion from the attorney general - it was very clear. I spoke with him personally. He said no way, no how was a state symbol going to impact that whatsoever."

Several committee members spoke in favor of the bill.

Four Democrats and two Republicans voted in favor, but 10 lawmakers, all Republicans, voted against the bill amid concerns of potential Endangered Species Act problems.

In the Senate, the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee began Health and Welfare week to address that agency's budget concerns. Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d'Alene, is the only Kootenai County member on that committee.

Department of Health and Welfare director Richard Armstrong outlined a handful of his agency's priorities to state budget writers Monday.

"I want to thank you for the appropriations for the Behavioral Health Community Crisis Center in Idaho Falls," Armstrong said, adding there will be a larger presentation on the new center this Wednesday.

He asked the members of JFAC to consider Gov. Butch Otter's request to fund another crisis center this year.

Malek said the agency is asking for $1.52 million to build a new center, and some additional startup funding.

Coeur d'Alene was in the running for the first center that was built last year, but despite tremendous local support for the center, Idaho Falls edged out the Lake City.

The community crisis centers are designed to take the pressure off hospital emergency rooms and jails by offering temporary help for mental health and substance abuse patients.

Armstrong said his agency negotiated an agreement with Bonneville County that will require it to pay 50 percent of the operating expenses within two years of opening.

"Future crisis centers will have the same contract requirements," he said. "It may be a challenge for communities to generate enough funding to cover 50 percent of the costs, but we believe communities need to have some skin in the game to sustain crisis centers and to ensure they have the greatest possible impact on the people and communities they serve."

Armstrong also told JFAC that despite the improving unemployment numbers in Idaho, demands for public assistance continue to escalate, with more than 332,000 people receiving some sort of federal or state aid.

Meanwhile, he said, the number of Idaho families earning a living wage has steadily dropped for the past six years.

According to Armstrong, only a third of Idaho's 1.5 million residents earn a sufficient wage to provide for a family of four. He said they would have to make an average of $20.30 an hour to do so.

Further adding to the struggle is the department's 13.6 percent turnover rate. Armstrong says the agency's best employees are being lured by private-sector salaries that pay nearly 40 percent more.

"We don't want to be the training ground for the private sector," he said, urging the committee to support the governor's recommendation to increase salaries by 3 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.