Education board won’t be fined

BOISE – The Idaho attorney general said members of the state Board of Education may have violated the state open meeting law when they briefly discussed the possible cancellation of a test behind closed doors during a December meeting in Pocatello.

But Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said penalizing board members with a $150 fine is not an option because of the burden of proving they “knowingly” violated the law.

Wasden released the findings of his investigation Friday along with a recommendation that board members get training to better understand Idaho’s open meeting statute.

Board spokesman Mark Browning said his agency has scheduled training for next Wednesday with staff from the attorney general’s office.

“His assertion in the report that the board may have unknowingly done something wrong, we accept those findings,” he said. “There’s always room for improvement.”

In December, The Spokesman-Review filed a complaint with the attorney general alleging that the board illegally excluded the public from a Dec. 6 executive session where it discussed eliminating the ninth-grade Idaho Standards Achievement Test. Other newspapers later joined the complaint.

The Idaho Open Meeting Law requires 24-hour meeting and agenda notice be given before holding an executive session. The notice must list specific reasons for the closed meeting.

Knowingly violating the law carries a maximum $150 fine per person for a first offense.

The attorney general’s investigation found that the board did discuss the possibility of cutting the test. His investigation found that the board did not deliberate or make a decision, but board members perceived a sense of “inevitability” the test would have to be cut.

On Dec. 10, the board’s interim executive director, Mike Rush, and Browning issued a statement that said the board had eliminated the test.

Wasden called the statement inaccurate because the board did not actually approve the cancellation of the test until a public meeting on Dec. 20.

Wasden noted that an Idaho Supreme Court decision last year established that the use of the word “knowingly” in the statute means that officials have to be aware of the law to break it.

Carla Savalli, a senior editor at the Spokesman-Review, told the Associated Press on Friday that she was concerned about the issue Wasden raised about knowing the law.

“We feel that the law here needs to be clarified,” she said. “Ignorance is being used as an excuse for violating the law. I don’t think there’s an excuse for public officials not knowing the basic tenets of the open meetings law.”