Otter fills education position

BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter has appointed a Twin Falls businessman to the state Board of Education, filling a seat that has been empty for nearly three months.

Ken Edmunds will serve a five-year term. He fills a vacancy created by the departure of Twin Falls attorney Laird Stone, who was appointed to the board by former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in 2003 for a term that expired March 1.

Otter announced the appointment Friday.

The 52-year-old Edmunds, a certified public accountant who formerly managed the Price Waterhouse accounting firm in Twin Falls, has more than a decade of experience in property development and investments, and owns several small businesses.

The state Senate will be asked to confirm his appointment during the 2009 Legislature.

The appointment is part of Otter’s efforts to improve and restore fiscal responsibility and accountability to the board, which has spent the past several months steering itself back from the financial brink.

“Our first step was to get someone of Ken Edmunds’ caliber on there,” said Clete Edmunson, the governor’s special assistant on education.

Otter is now reviewing the programs the board oversees as he looks to focus the agency more toward education policy and away from oversight of educational programs, a responsibility that should fall to the state Department of Education, Edmunson said.

“We need them to set the policy for the state … not be so overloaded with managing programs,” he said. “We’re in the process of looking at the programs the board manages and seeing if those programs can be moved elsewhere.”

Edmunds said his appointment is a great opportunity as people look for change within the state Board of Education.

While he brings fiscal expertise to the board, Edmunds said he hopes his contribution will be much broader and include areas of Idaho public education that need improvement, such as reducing high school dropout rates and improving statewide testing methods.

“I’m very much for accountability and testing,” Edmunds said. “But I don’t know that the testing we’re doing is telling us anything.”