Albertson Foundation advancing state community college effort

BOISE – The chairman of the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation is looking for partners that will help the Boise area get a community college as quickly as possible.

“We are willing to put money on the line,” said Joe Scott.

Lawmakers earlier this month voted against a plan to create a statewide community college system and instead told a committee to spend the next several months studying the issue.

The matter doesn’t need to be studied more, Scott told the Idaho Statesman.

“We don’t need another study to know we have an immediate need for a community college in the Treasure Valley,” he said.

The Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce is going to have legislators, business people and educators meet next month to assess what the area should do next in its quest to create a community college. One option is to create a community college district supported in part by a local property tax that would require a two-thirds approval by voters.

The foundation has given more than $270 million for Idaho education in the past decade. It is willing to put millions more into a community college. Several area colleges have submitted proposals to the foundation.

Scott said he doesn’t care who comes up with the plan – it could be a consortium of corporations, a nonprofit, or a for-profit entity that is in Idaho or from somewhere else. But he said any plan would need sustained funding.

“We’d like to see proposals from anybody who can come in here and make this happen,” said Scott, the grandson of grocery magnate Joe Albertson, who started the foundation with his wife, Kathryn.

In March, as community college legislation appeared stalled in the statehouse, the foundation met with state Board of Education President Rod Lewis and offered $15 million to start a Treasure Valley community college. But lawmakers would have had to find a way to sustain funding for the school and the foundation to be sure the school would be independent of other universities in a couple of years.

That plan did not go ahead. Now the foundation is searching for new ideas. Scott said Micron Technology Inc., the state’s largest employer, has contacted the foundation.

“We are supportive of the efforts of the business community to drive forward toward a community college,” said Micron spokesman Dan Francisco.

Corporations and the foundation could go to the state and say “we’ve got a … commitment to build this, but we’re not going to build it until you tell me how you are going to fund it,” Scott said. “If they turn their back on that and couldn’t get it done, I don’t know what you do.”

Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Ore., has submitted a proposal to the foundation for starting a community college in the Boise area. Earlier, Boise State University also proposed to the foundation to transform its Nampa campus into a community college, with additional classes to be housed in Boise and Meridian public school buildings. Both those proposals are still under consideration.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and lawmakers also introduced plans for community college systems, but those plans were rejected by lawmakers.