Some Legislators Distrust Bill

Some legislators near the University of Idaho question a bill allowing the state Board of Education to delegate more authority to its executive director and university presidents.

The Legislative Committee on Higher Education Governance endorsed the bill after the board voted to transfer control of the University of Idaho’s undergraduate Boise engineering programs to Boise State University.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, said he wonders whether the bill will go before his panel in the upcoming session.

Sen. Marguerite McLaughlin, D-Orofino, said she voted against it as a member of the interim legislative committee because the timing is bad.

“I think we ought to sit back and look at what the state board staff is doing,” she said. “If they are lobbying and doing the things that I heard they were doing, I think their horns ought to be pulled back.”

Rayburn Barton, the board’s executive director, pointed out the board’s staffers routinely make recommendations to the state regents.

“If that is what the senator calls lobbying, I guess I lobbied,” he said Thursday. “I don’t call making a recommendation lobbying.”

Barton said the staffers recommended transferring control of the Boise engineering programs to Boise State last January, but the board rejected that suggestion.

The staff had the same advice a month ago and the board heeded that, he said.