Final piece of broadband stopgap fix: Taking back $5M unspent in Admin budget to cover it
Members of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee have gone section by section through the details of the “legislative intent” language to be attached to the $3.64 million stopgap school broadband appropriation, and after many questions, approved each section unanimously. The language ties strings to the money, including specifying that the state superintendent will distribute the funds, and both the superintendent and the districts will report back to the Legislature in detail on how it’s spent and for what.
Then, it took up the second piece of the legislation to accomplish all this: A recission, taking back money allocated to the state Department of Administration last year for the Idaho Education Network that was never spent. Part of the money was to cover lost federal e-rate payments, which were cut off due to legal questions over the issuance of the IEN contract.
“The reason those vendors have not been paid is because of the voided contract issue – state law says you cannot pay vendors under a voided contract,” said legislative budget analyst Robyn Lockett. That means there is $5,052,000 “sitting in the Department of Adminstration’s budget that cannot be paid out to vendors under the voided contract.”
Senate Education Chairman Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, moved to approve the recission, and Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, seconded the motion. “This motion ensures that students have uninterrupted access to broadband services through the superintendent of public instruction’s office, and that every school district has the funding resources it needs to purchase broadband connectivity in the current year,” Mortimer said. It “gives us the money back into the general fund to take care of the previous action.”
Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, said that was his concern with the earlier motion to for the stopgap appropriation, and this move settles his concern. “I don’t have any problem with this. This is a good idea,” Gannon said. The motion then passed unanimously, 19-0.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your trust and your patience,” said JFAC Co-Chair Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, and she adjourned the meeting.
