Rural school funds OK’d

BOISE – The House approved a $3.5 million advance Thursday on federal grant money that may be headed for Idaho’s cash-strapped rural schools.

House Bill 330 aims to distribute the money from an education reserve fund to rural schools to replace part of the state’s Craig-Wyden payments, which have expired but which state lawmakers expect to be approved in Congress later this year. The funds would help districts create teacher contracts and set budgets this spring without making drastic cuts.

If Congress reauthorizes the full grant to schools, money given to districts would revert to the state.

House members voted 52-12 to pass the bill, which still requires approval by the Senate and Gov. Butch Otter in the waning days of the session.

For decades, the federal government shared timber harvest revenue with counties that included large amounts of national forestlands. Challenges to timber harvesting practices caused a decline in harvests, prompting Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, to write legislation in 2000 to supplement forest revenue.

The so-called Craig-Wyden funds are vital for some North Idaho school districts, such as Kellogg, Wallace and Mullan, said House Education Committee Chairman Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene. It would be “just be devastating” for them to lose the federal money, Nonini said.

Boundary County schools would lose more than $250,000 next year if the payments end. Kellogg schools stand to lose twice that much, and the Wallace School District could lose $200,000.

The $3.5 million is only about 70 percent of the state’s yearly Craig-Wyden payment.

The education reserve fund will still contain more than $100 million even after the allocation, Nonini said.

But Rep. Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, cautioned lawmakers that the bill might open the door for the state to be saddled with supplementing rural school budgets in the future.

“We are heading down a very slippery slope in precedent setting here,” he said, adding that the state needs a long-term solution to fund those schools. “This is hopefully the first and the last time we ever do this.”

HB 330 also sets aside $60 million in general fund money to the Economic Recovery Reserve Fund, and then transfers $15 million of that to the state Department of Commerce. That $15 million could be tapped by the governor and legislative leaders for certain economic situations, possibly including water rights settlements or other issues.

The remaining $45 million is set aside toward building a new secure mental facility in Idaho’s prison system, for which the Legislature already approved planning funds this year.