State Argues Most Schools Need No Help Sides File Written Closing Arguments In Lawsuit Over Safety Problems In Idaho’S Schoolhouses

Two Idaho schools - including Troy High School - should be shut down before next fall.

Two other school districts don’t have the money to fix critical safety problems in their schools.

Lawyers for the state of Idaho conceded those two points Thursday in written arguments in a lawsuit charging that the state has unconstitutionally failed to maintain adequate schoolhouses.

The state and a group of school districts filed their written closing arguments with the 4th District Court. While the districts asked Judge Deborah Bail to declare Idaho’s system of financing school buildings unconstitutional and order immediate and long-term changes, the state argued otherwise.

“The vast majority of districts have no safety problems they can’t take care of in the ordinary course of business,” said Michael Gilmore, the deputy attorney general handling the case for the state. “There are a few districts which have safety problems, but with two exceptions, they have the resources to take care of them.”

Gilmore submitted a thick stack of documents examining building safety problems and finances in each school district that was highlighted in testimony during the trial in the case last month. Among those listed was the Boundary County School District, which is among the districts suing.

“It has matters that must be attended to, particularly regarding fire alarms and fire-resistant classroom doors,” the state argued. But, it continued, “the district has substantial resources to improve the conditions of its buildings, but has devoted these resources to activities not required by state board rules.”

Gilmore said Boundary County needs to spend $50,000 at each of five schools to replace fire alarm systems. But the district has an existing supplemental levy - a voter-approved additional property tax - that isn’t being spent on buildings. “They’ve got the resources to do it,” he said.

During testimony, Boundary Superintendent Reid Straabe said the district uses its existing funds for “educating.”

That’s a key point of disagreement between the two sides. State lawmakers enacted three new laws this year to address school building-safety problems. But none provides new money to school districts, other than loans that must be paid back with interest. That means money now used for educating kids would have to be switched to the safety work.

Idaho is the toughest state in the nation in which to build a school. That’s because it’s the only state that both requires a two-thirds vote to raise property taxes for a school construction bond, and provides no state aid for construction, leaving the full bill to local property taxpayers.

Robert Huntley, the former Idaho Supreme Court justice who is representing the school districts, argued, “The Legislature has a duty under the Idaho Constitution to ensure that the students in all school districts, and in all school buildings, are attending school in a safe environment and in facilities which permit the delivery of a thorough education.

“It is undisputed that such is not being accomplished under the present system,” he wrote.

Huntley asked the court to order the Legislature to come up with a comprehensive plan within one year to upgrade all schools to provide “a safe environment conducive to learning.” That would include making sure schools have adequate air-conditioning and ventilation and the wiring to handle technology, he said. Huntley also asked for immediate testing of Silver Valley schools for lead and other heavy metals, which Judge Bail has agreed to and ordered on March 27.

“There is a real and immediate risk to the children of the Silver Valley from lead and heavy metal contamination,” Bail wrote in her March 27 order.

Huntley also asked the state to immediately survey older schools, such as one in American Falls that has earthquake-safety problems, and to address fire alarm and public address systems in schools across the state; crumbling foundations in older schoolhouses; lack of air-conditioning; schools with unsafe electrical wiring or wiring that can’t accommodate computers; use of portable classrooms as permanent ones; and schools that lack facilities such as science labs, gyms and computer labs.

Gilmore argued that the three laws the Legislature enacted this year will help the two districts, Cottonwood and Orofino, that don’t appear to have the money to fix their safety problems.

One of the new laws sets up a revolving loan fund for districts that have exhausted every other option to fund critical safety repairs. Another allows voters to approve extended plant facilities levies for safety problems, allowing districts to take out bank loans.

The third law allows the state to order unsafe schools shut down.

The state identified two candidates for shutdown in its arguments: Troy High School and Weippe Elementary School. Neither is in the two districts identified as lacking funding.

“We think they’ve got the money to fix it,” Gilmore said of troubled Whitepine School District, home of Troy High School. “Testimony showed they’re just spending the money on other things.”

The deteriorating, aging school is long since condemned, but has stayed open for classes as voters refused to pay for a new school.

At Weippe Elementary, a boiler sits right under three classrooms, and icy snowmelt routinely floods the boiler room a foot deep.

“This is an extreme case,” Gilmore said.

Students shouldn’t return to the school in the fall unless either the heating system has been changed or the leakage stopped, Gilmore said. But he added that students at Weippe could easily be bused to the elementary school at Pierce, 12 miles away, which has excess classroom space.

At Troy, only the main building of the high school would be ordered shut down. That would leave several outlying buildings, allowing the district to either build anew, rent space for additional classrooms nearby, double-shift at the local elementary school or contract with an adjacent school district.

“They need to decide,” Gilmore said. “We’re not trying to micromanage. But we are saying, don’t occupy it until it’s fixed.”

The two sides now have two weeks to respond to each other’s closing arguments, and then the judge can rule. She could also issue additional rulings before the final one, like her Silver Valley lead-testing order, if she sees immediate needs.