School fix hits a snag
BOISE – A Republican leadership plan to respond to a court order to fix Idaho’s system for funding school construction ran into a roadblock Thursday, when the House Education Committee voted 10-8 to halt the plan in favor of waiting and getting more information both from the sponsors of that bill and a competing Democratic proposal.
Committee Chairman Jack Barraclough, R-Idaho Falls, pushed hard to just pass the leadership bill but was outvoted. Rep. Jana Kemp, R-Boise, had lots of questions about how each plan would work and noted that testimony in a two-hour hearing pointed out problems and advantages to both. “Can we merge these two bills in the ways that are appropriate and make a better bill?” she asked.
Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, a sponsor of the Democratic bill, HB 691, said, “I think if it would be the will of this committee that the two groups work together and find a middle ground, of course that can be done.”
House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, however, speaking to the Idaho Press Club about two hours later, reacted angrily to the vote. “I think the House leadership bill will go somewhere, and it will come out of that committee or some other committee,” he declared.
But a few minutes later, he acknowledged, “Yeah, there are some problems in there, and they didn’t surface until today. But they’re going to be fixed.”
The leadership bill, HB 690, raised questions because it provided little new state money to help school districts with construction and repair costs, and it included controversial provisions. One calls for districts that can’t pass bonds to fix unsafe buildings to be taken over by a state official who could fire their superintendent. The state would then loan money to build a new school, but the districts’ patrons would be ordered to pay most of the money back through a no-vote property tax levy – and that could happen only after local voters had voted against the idea twice.
The measure also was criticized for cutting off subsidies for school bond payments for most districts that they’re entitled to under current law, and opting instead to give more money to poor districts.
“We’re targeting money to need,” said Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, a sponsor of HB 690. “It’s all about allocating scarce resources.”
The bill sets up a $25 million loan fund for districts that are taken over by the state, but several education officials who testified said no one would ever tap that fund because of the restrictions. “If not, why provide such a large sum of money to be held in abeyance when there are unmet safety needs now?” asked Mike Friend, executive director of the Idaho School Administrators Association.
The measure also requires school districts to set up new maintenance funds. The state would provide about a quarter of the needed funds, with more aid going to poorer districts, but the money would come largely from shifting lottery proceeds that schools already get now.
HB 691, the Democrats’ plan, would match a portion of payments on both existing and future school bonds with $30 million a year in state funds. It also would require school districts to set up new building maintenance funds, but would provide $28 million a year in state aid to match a $28 million investment by the districts.
That bill drew criticism for its cost of nearly $57 million a year. It proposes to earmark a portion of the state’s sales tax revenues to cover the expense.
“I just think we have to recognize that we’re not going to satisfy the court without spending some money,” Ringo said. “And frankly, the dollars we spend at the state level take it away from property tax.”
Bedke said the current system “in the vast majority of the cases is working. We’re trying to direct resources to the areas that are not working. The problem is not statewide.”
The Idaho Supreme Court in December declared the current system for funding school construction in Idaho unconstitutional and ordered the Legislature to fix it.
Robert Huntley, the former Idaho Supreme Court justice who represented school districts that successfully sued the state over school construction funding, said there are problems with both bills, but HB 691 is better because it actually puts additional state money into school construction.
“The Supreme Court said we can’t continue to fund school facilities from the property tax alone,” Huntley said after the committee meeting. “What we really need is a new revenue source.”
He and the school districts that sued have proposed eliminating a sales tax exemption for utility sales, to raise $67 million a year, but lawmakers haven’t considered that proposal.