Lawmakers Asked To Fix Ailing Schools ‘It’S Your Job To Get The Job Done,’ Lawyer Says

A state commission studying Idaho’s school needs overlooked countless horror stories from ailing school districts whose buildings are falling apart, an attorney told lawmakers Thursday.

Former Supreme Court Justice Robert Huntley, who is representing a group of school districts suing the state, presented proof at a joint meeting of the House and Senate Education committees. In a 2-inch thick stack of documents that Huntley gave to lawmakers, school superintendents detailed their districts’ problems.

Huntley said schools have crumbling foundations, asbestos problems and earthquake hazards that have gone undetected because Idaho’s school safety inspectors aren’t qualified engineers.

When lawmakers responded by questioning why school districts haven’t fixed the problems on their own, Huntley said the state Constitution places the responsibility for education squarely on the Legislature.

“What you’re saying really is that these superintendents who are suing the state right now are subjecting our children to dangerous and life-threatening conditions,” said Rep. Todd Hammond, R-Rexburg.

Huntley responded, “If those folks, if you think they’re derelict, it’s your job to get the job done. You can’t pass it off like that.”

Lawmakers have been passing around lists of the 27 districts that are suing, and the amounts that they’re taxing themselves.

“I guess what bothers me, is why should I as a taxpayer who has stepped up, supported bonds in my district, now be helping somebody who doesn’t have any bonded indebtedness in their school district?” asked Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum, pulling out his list of districts.

But he added, “That doesn’t address the problem.”

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial March 7, though 4th District Judge Deborah Bail said she’d delay it until legislators have finished dealing with the issue during their session. This year’s session is expected to last several weeks past that date.

Michael Gilmore, the deputy attorney general who is representing the state, said the Legislature has ultimate responsibility for schools, but he argues that under state law, “Districts bear a considerable amount of initial responsibility.”

If a school district has unmet safety needs in its schools, it’s fair to ask whether that district has spent money elsewhere, Gilmore said. “Has it staffed higher than it needed to? Offered extra classes? Put money into other capital projects? We would explore those kinds of questions.”

Gilmore said that although the state’s school safety inspectors aren’t engineers, that doesn’t stop a district from hiring architects, engineers or other experts to check out their schools.

“The state inspection is not the ending point,” he said. “It’s certainly the beginning point.”

Huntley pointed to recent problems at the Wendell Middle School, near Twin Falls. The central portion of that school had just passed a state safety inspection, when engineers hired by the district found that its foundation was crumbling into dust. The School Board there voted unanimously this week to condemn the structure.

School inspection reports cited by the special committee assembled by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne over the summer often cited things such as inadequate railings and exit lights.

“It was a quick and dirty study,” said Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a member of Kempthorne’s committee. “I did not vote to accept it and I thought it was a waste of the state’s money.”

Idaho is the toughest state in the nation in which to build a school, because it is the only state that both leaves the full cost to local property taxpayers and requires them to vote by a two-thirds margin to pass a school bond.

The state committee formed last year by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne didn’t recommend changing that system. Instead, it examined a pared-down list of about $50 million in safety problems that it suggested be addressed with local property taxes.

Nevertheless, Kempthorne has proposed a loan program to fix those safety problems, with the state picking up the interest costs. Lawmakers are mulling different versions of that plan, including one in which the districts would pay the interest.

“Frankly, the bottom line is whatever system we have in place is not doing the job,” Huntley told the committees. “It can’t be fixed with Band-Aids. We need to have some more money in there.”

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said, “I thought he did a good job of showing the legislators what the problems are. I only hope that they listened.”

Huntley’s presentation included a calculation that for a $20 million bond issue, the owner of a $100,000 home in Blaine County would pay only $31, while in Minidoka County, the figure would be $299.

Keough said people in Bonner and Boundary counties have the same problem - the taxable value of property in the county is low, meaning the amounts each taxpayer has to pay to fund schools is high. To make matters worse, incomes are low, so few can afford to pay those amounts. “There’s huge disparity there in ability to pay,” Keough said.

Sen. Jack Riggs, R-Coeur d’Alene, wasn’t persuaded by Huntley’s presentation.

“I think his perception of the problem is exaggerated,” Riggs said. “We know that there are lots of very nice buildings. How do we deal with those few where it really is a problem, how do we create a sub-system that works for them without threatening the whole system?”

Huntley said written testimony gathered for the upcoming trial showed that the vast majority of the bonds and levies passed in the past eight years were in just a few school districts, while most districts actually lost ground on their building problems.

He told lawmakers that with a healthy budget surplus, Idaho is in a good position now to address the problem.

“I would be very happy if you resolved it,” he said, “and we would not have to go to court.”