Board Wants Back Money Given To Davis
The Idaho Board of Education wants restitution of a $20,000 bonus paid without its approval to former University of Idaho basketball coach Kermit Davis.
And state Schools Superintendent Anne Fox on Thursday suggested to her fellow board members that former interim Idaho President Thomas Bell should pay it back if he indeed erred.
The board unanimously supported a motion to have legal staff explore the possibility of getting the money back.
A report by Deputy Attorney General Kirby Nelson concluded Bell violated board policy by failing to report the “salary supplement,” although he had at least four opportunities to do so.
Nelson did not conclude Bell “willfully misled” the board.
“However, even an unintentional failure to report the Davis payment demonstrates extraordinary negligence by Dr. Bell,” Nelson wrote.
Bell has denied deliberately shielding information about the bonus from the state regents. He said he does not recall whether he approved the bonus in Davis’ contract.
Davis left this spring after only one year to become an assistant coach at Louisiana State.
Board member Tom Dillon of Caldwell absolved university President Robert Hoover of any wrongdoing, saying the deal was in motion before he took office last year.
“He really got blind-sided,” Dillon said.
Hoover has apologized to the board for what he called the “irresponsible manner” in which the school failed to report the bonus. He took responsibility, since all activities after July 1 were on his watch.
Fox said there is a missing piece from the puzzle and that is a response from Bell.
“If he indeed did something that was wrong, then he should pay it back,” she said.
The board asked staff to seek a response from Bell about Nelson’s report. It rejected a recommendation to forward the report to the Latah County prosecutor to determine if any criminal activity occurred when Davis was paid four installments totaling $20,000, on top of his $75,000 annual salary.
Cougars, Eagles to play in Tri-Cities
Washington State University will play a regular-season men’s basketball game in the Tri-Cities area for the first time in 18 years when it takes on Eastern Washington Dec. 22 at the Tri-Cities Coliseum.
The WSU-EWU contest will be just the third Cougar regular-season game played in the Tri-Cities area and the first game ever at Kennewick. The other two games, both played at Richland, came during George Raveling’s coaching tenure at WSU. The Cougars defeated Eastern Montana (84-55) Dec. 29, 1979, and beat Pacific Lutheran (74-68) Nov. 27, 1976.
Holt falls in Public Links
Spokane’s Brittney Holt lost in the opening round of match play Friday in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.
Holt, playing on the 6,016-yard, par-72 Center Square (Pa.) Golf Club layout, fell to Lachell Poffenberger of Salt Lake City, 5 and 4.
Poffenberger went on to win her second-round match, 2 and 1 over Jennifer Krupa of North Royalton, Ohio.
, DataTimes