Legislators Asked To Shift Prison Money To Education

Bombarded a second straight day about the insistent shift of financial responsibility for higher education from the state to students and donors, legislative budget writers on Wednesday acknowledged the problems faced by students forced to amass increasing debt to get through school.

But Senate Finance Chairman Atwell Parry said blaming that on increased spending for prisons offers no relief. Idaho’s tough stand against crime, the retiring Melba Republican said, is the reason the state’s crime rate is so low.

“We’re doing all we can, but there’s no solution unless we start turning (prisoners) loose, and that’s no solution,” Parry said.

Still, Idaho State University Student Body President Katie Mihlfeith kept up the drumbeat for refocusing resources from prisons to financial aid to make college more affordable.

More scholarships - the state spends $2.7 million a year now in scholarships - or a significantly lower cap on annual student fee hikes would provide some relief, she said. The current cap is 10 percent a year.

Mihlfeith suggested that maintaining accessible and affordable educational opportunities was a better use of tax money than building and staffing prisons.

Parry and others bristle each time the two are linked, maintaining that no direct connection can be made and that the responsibility of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is to dole out limited tax revenues to cover all state programs.

During the 1990s, while state support for higher education increased 75 percent from $115.5 million to $202 million now, prison spending nearly tripled from $27.6 million to $82.4 million.