State school superintendent races tight

BOISE – The Republican primary for state superintendent of public schools tightened Tuesday night into a two-man race between Tom Luna and Steve Smylie, candidates who traded allegations of campaign rule violations.

With 39 percent of precincts counted, Smylie had 42 percent of the votes, to 40 percent for Luna. Steve Casey, principal at Coeur d’Alene High School, was third with 18 percent.

The Democratic primary also was tight. Jana Jones, a longtime assistant to outgoing Superintendent Marilyn Howard, was leading Bert Marley, a high school German teacher and state senator from McCammon, 51 percent to 49 percent.

The superintendent oversees 110 employees in charge of public education from kindergarten through 12th grade.

But the office’s power has dwindled since Howard, the only statewide Democratic official, was elected in 1999. Gubernatorial appointees to the Idaho State Board of Education have moved steadily to assume more responsibility for public schools.

Marley and Jones had expressed concerns the board was usurping the elected superintendent’s authority. Casey and Smylie also said they thought one of the biggest challenges a new superintendent would have would be balancing his or her relationship with an aggressive board.

Only Luna was satisfied with the present arrangement, saying he “gets along very good with the state board.”

The board’s budget has risen 758 percent since Howard took office, while the Department of Education she oversees has seen its budget double. The board now oversees the department’s Limited English Proficiency program, and at its last meeting in April moved to require the Department of Education to seek board approval before applying for grants.

Casey, who has spent his career in schools before becoming principal at Coeur d’Alene High, campaigned with a slogan of fiscal conservatism, maintaining that his experience was akin to that of a chief executive officer who knows how to pare unnecessary spending while maintaining the public school system.

Luna, who sat on the Nampa School Board for eight years through 2002, and Smylie, 52, a four-term state House member, provided some of the most animated moments of the campaign.

Smylie was forced to acknowledge he inappropriately used public school and Idaho state computers to send campaign related material.

In turn, he accused Luna’s campaign director, Wayne Hoffman, of using work time at his regular job at the Idaho Department of Agriculture to perform campaign-related tasks. Both Luna and Hoffman denied the allegations, prompting Smylie to quip: “If he’s doing all that work after hours, he’s not sleeping much.”

In other races, incumbent Lawrence Wasden defeated Adams County Prosecutor Myron Dan Gabbert in the Republican primary for attorney general, winning again in a rematch of the 2002 primary. Wasden gathered 73 percent of the vote to Gabbert’s 27 percent among Republican voters with 33 percent of the precincts reporting.

In the Republican primary for state controller, former state representative Donna Jones led certified public accountant Royce Chigbrow 61 percent to 39 percent with 33 percent of the precincts reporting.

Jones said her experiences as an Idaho lawmaker and familiarity with land issues would help her with land board decisions. She also said her management experience as the executive director of the Idaho Real Estate Commission would serve her well as the state’s chief financial officer.

Chigbrow campaigned on his background as a certified public accountant with 42 years of tax seasons behind him.

He also said his philosophy on land board issues reflected voters in the state who he said favor industries that use natural resources.