NIC aims to shape state system talk

Less than two weeks after North Idaho College representatives met with the Legislature’s interim committee on community colleges, members of the school’s governing board met with College of Southern Idaho officials via videoconference to talk about their views on a possible statewide system and form a plan for the coming months.

NIC President Michael Burke will work with CSI President Jerry Beck on drafting a joint resolution to the committee stating what Idaho’s two community colleges want the committee to consider. The resolution will be presented to the governing boards of both colleges for approval.

“We want to be proactive,” Burke said.

Boise is the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a community college, and lawmakers have been trying for years to start a statewide system, which would include a Boise college. A committee of 18 senators and representatives is studying the issue and making a proposal to the 2007 Legislature. Funding and governance are the main issues for the existing colleges, with college representatives wanting to ensure that the current system of a locally elected board is preserved and that funding through property tax remains.

“Each individual community college should be financed as we are,” said Rolly Williams, chairman of the NIC board of trustees. “I don’t see any reason at all to reinvent the wheel.”

Williams expressed disgust with the way the Legislature is approaching the issue, saying the attention many members of the interim committee are giving to the local property tax portion of college funding is misdirected.

“It concerns me when I (see) what I see to be politics entering into what should be a very logical process,” Williams said. “I’m amazed.”

GOP Rep. Jim Clark of Hayden Lake serves on the legislative committee and has said it’s his goal to get the colleges off the property tax system. He said in a phone interview Monday that while that goal still remains, he wants to first make sure all community colleges in the state are funded the same way.

“It should be one system, either with or without property taxes,” he said.

Burke said what most committee members didn’t seem to fully understand prior to the meeting was how little property tax the college actually gets. Of the 82,000 property tax bills NIC is on, half are for less than $50, Burke said.

Clark said every bit of the property tax counts.

“That drop in the bucket means something to a lot of Kootenai County taxpayers, who think it’s more than a drop in the bucket because property taxes are always going up,” he said.

NIC trustee Mic Armon said property owners are critical of any entity that taxes them.

“I think people in North Idaho are concerned about paying property tax for just about anything,” he said. “We have become an easy target” because many view a community college as one that doesn’t provide the life-saving services that fire districts and other taxing entities do and is something people spend disposable income on, he said.

NIC trustee Judy Meyer said the fear of state funding is rooted in its vulnerability. As state funding increases, “the string turns into a rope which can be used as a noose,” she said.