Budgets boost state’s nursing faculty
BOISE – Lawmakers approved a substantial investment in new nursing faculty at the state’s colleges and universities Tuesday in response to a statewide nursing shortage.
“All we hear is a need for more nursing,” said Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, who noted that North Idaho newspaper want ads are filled with job openings for nurses. “We obviously aren’t meeting the need yet there.”
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee set budgets Tuesday for the state’s two community colleges and its four-year colleges and universities. In both budgets, the committee added nursing faculty positions, creating slots for a total of 200 additional nursing students around the state.
Overall, the budgets showed a 6.9 percent increase in state funding for community colleges, and an 8.4 percent increase for the four-year colleges and universities.
Hammond, a former member of the state Board of Education, said, “I felt they were pretty good increases and showed good support for higher education.”
Gov. Butch Otter has recommended funding two new nursing education buildings in next year’s budget but didn’t recommend any new faculty. A state nursing task force had recommended substantial increases both in faculty and their pay.
Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, a nurse practitioner, said she appreciates the addition of the faculty and the governor’s proposal to build the two nursing education buildings. But she said the state still hasn’t addressed the issue of inadequate salaries for nursing faculty. That’s caused Idaho to lose nursing faculty to other states and made new positions hard to fill, she said.
“That’s a looming problem that we potentially are making worse by increasing seats and building buildings, and at some point we are going to have to deal with that,” Henbest warned.
Four-year colleges and universities, including the University of Idaho, would get $264.2 million in state funding next year under the budget plan that won unanimous approval from the joint committee. Budget bills still need approval from both houses and the governor’s signature to become law, but once they’re set by JFAC, they’re rarely changed.
Otter had called for $275.7 million, a 13.1 percent increase, but that included a large one-time boost for research grants.
The governor had called for $15 million in new research grants through the Higher Education Research Council for research specifically aimed at economic development. Lawmakers instead set aside just $1.56 million for that purpose. There’s already money in the base budget for the council, so that brings the total for research grants next year to $3 million.
The budget approved by lawmakers includes one new faculty position for Idaho State University’s bachelor’s degree nursing program in Boise, and three new nursing faculty positions at Lewis-Clark State College, plus another half-time position. That creates room for 10 new nursing students in the Boise program and 30 at LCSC.
In the community college budget, lawmakers added two full-time and two part-time nursing faculty members at the College of Southern Idaho to add capacity for 140 new nursing students. At North Idaho College, they agreed to increase adjunct clinical faculty and lease an outreach clinical site in Sandpoint, allowing the associate degree RN program to add 20 students.
The budget plan also added funding for work force training at both community colleges. The $23.6 million budget won unanimous approval; it exceeds Otter’s $23.1 million proposal, which would have been a 4.5 percent increase.
Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, said she had hoped the Legislature would increase faculty pay more to help universities keep key professors, but Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said an overall 5 percent increase in salary funding that was included in the budget should help with that.
Also on Tuesday, the joint committee began working on budgets for the large and complex Department of Health and Welfare. That process will continue today.