Educators make pitch
BOISE – Idaho needs to put more money into its education system, from beefing up high school classes to lifting the increasing financial load on its college students, the state Board of Education told lawmakers Monday.
“All I can say is more funding is needed in Idaho for education,” state board member Laird Stone told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.
“We are falling behind,” said board member Sue Thilo of Coeur d’Alene. “Students are paying more to go to school, and they are paying longer. … The best economic development program in the state is education.”
In fact, Idaho would have to spend $40 million more today just to keep student fees at its state colleges and universities at their 2002 level of 20 percent of the cost of education. Fees are now covering 33 percent of that cost.
Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, said Idaho’s college students are paying too much in tuition and fees, at the same time that officials and lawmakers are complaining about how few Idaho high school graduates go to college. “It seems to me that you could … put those two things together,” she said wryly.
Monday’s session between the key joint budget committee at the state Board of Education kicked off a week of education budget hearings. JFAC, which has 20 members drawn from the Senate and the House, is gathering the information it needs to set the state budget, including funding for public schools, colleges and universities.
“Money’s not always the answer to fixing a problem,” Rep. Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, told the board members. “I was hoping you guys were going to come in here and say you didn’t need any money and you was gonna give some back.”
That comment drew laughter.
Higher education is the slowest-growing portion of the state budget, and public schools – which traditionally have taken up half the state’s general fund budget – have seen their share drop in recent years. Meanwhile, Medicaid and Corrections budgets have escalated. Idaho’s colleges and universities saw their funding particularly pinched during the economic downturn that marked that past five years.
“It is time to turn to higher education this year and stem the trend,” Board of Education Chairman Rod Lewis told the legislators.
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has recommended a $240 million budget for the state’s four-year colleges and universities next year, a 4.8 percent increase in general funds. But the institutions requested $282 million, a 23 percent increase.
During the lean funding years, student fees and tuition soared. From 1995 to 2005, average in-state fees at Idaho’s four-year colleges went from $1,528 to $3,636, a 138 percent increase. Overall, fees went up 168 percent, while state funding for the colleges rose only 36 percent during the same period.
“Student debt has doubled over the last eight years,” Thilo said. “You can connect those dots pretty easily.”
Thilo said it’s time “to try and stop the bleeding.”
Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, asked how much it would take for the state to return to its 2002 level of student fees paying for only 20 percent of the cost of college education. The committee took a break while its experts ran the numbers. The answer: $40 million.
“That’s eye-opening,” Thilo said. “I don’t know that we can go back, but reversing the trend will help.”
JFAC members also had lots of questions about the state board’s plan to require more math and science classes to graduate from high school, which board members defended as crucial to increasing the rigor of Idaho’s high school curriculum and improving students’ future chances.
“The research simply doesn’t show that students drop out when they are challenged,” Lewis told the lawmakers.
The plan is expected to prompt the hiring of 274 more teachers statewide and cost $17 million a year once fully implemented. Lawmakers haven’t yet decided whether to accept the plan, after a Senate committee rejected it on a 5-4 vote and a House committee deadlocked, 9-9.
Budget hearings will continue today with a closer look at the University of Idaho and two other universities; Wednesday with a hearing on community colleges; and Thursday with the hearing on the public schools budget.