Governor’s Math Baffles Nic School Can’t ‘Go In New Directions’ Without Funds, President Says

North Idaho College wants to build a technical center in Post Falls where high schoolers would take vocational or high-tech classes to speed progress toward good jobs after graduation.

But that would cost $15 million. And the state Board of Education didn’t even approve NIC’s request for $250,000 in the coming year to start planning for the center.

Nevertheless, NIC President Bob Bennett told the Legislature’s budget committee Thursday, “I’m going to keep coming back and I’m going to keep talking about that idea because I know it’s the right thing to do. I know it will work.”

Such a program, Bennett said, “will give these students a new hope with respect to jobs and the future.”

Bennett, in his annual budget pitch to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said, “I know you don’t have any money, but what I want to point out is the inconsistency of saying, ‘Let’s go in new directions”’ without new funding.

The only request for new programs in Bennett’s budget that survived the Board of Education’s scrutiny was for a director to coordinate a distance-learning program which is funded mostly by a federal grant.

But Gov. Phil Batt didn’t include that position in his proposed budget.

Bennett noted that his budget request sought a $679,400 increase in state funding for NIC, while the governor’s budget limited the increase to only $84,500.

“Now there’s a heck of a difference between those two numbers,” Bennett told lawmakers.

Batt’s budget is roughly a 2 percent increase, while Bennett’s asks for a 12 percent hike.

“You say, ‘Oh, come on, Bennett, 12 percent?”’ he said. “But we’re right in line in terms of matching enrollment.”

NIC’s enrollment went up 11 percent this year, Bennett said.

But the college, at its board of trustees’ direction, hasn’t raised student tuition in three years. And it is levying less in property taxes than it did in 1995 - also at the board’s urging.

“That’s a direct reflection of the local board philosophy,” Bennett said. “They have listened to the taxpayer, and the taxpayers are very vocal.”

Bennett said he is “absolutely” comfortable with sharing 50-50 the $1 million in property tax relief that Batt has earmarked for Idaho’s two community colleges in the coming year.

Sen. Stan Hawkins, R-Ucon, suggested that because Kootenai County taxpayers are paying more in property taxes for NIC than residents of Jerome and Twin Falls counties are paying for the College of Southern Idaho, the Northerners should get a bigger share of the relief.

But Bennett said, “We think in the long run, if we don’t say 50-50, we’ll have such arguments among the people in the Legislature that we’ll lose it.”

Kootenai County taxpayers paid $5.8 million in property taxes to NIC in 1996. CSI collected $3.7 million from its local taxpayers.

The governor’s relief proposal would replace $500,000 of those totals for each school with state general funds, giving local taxpayers a break while not changing the total funding available to the schools.

, DataTimes