Another request for endowment reserves, this time for State Hospital South…

After last month’s stormy special Land Board meeting at which a divided board opted to take an additional $22 million from school endowment reserves to help Idaho’s schools through next year’s budget crunch, the board now has received another request, from State Hospital South, for an additional $1.2 million special distribution in fiscal year 2011. The State Hospital South endowment reserve actually has $1.6 million in excess of its goal of five years’ worth of regular distributions.

The board isn’t scheduled to decide on that request until next month, but Gov. Butch Otter said the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee should be informed of the possibility. Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said endowment distributions at one time were “supposed to be the gravy on top of the regular appropriation,” not to function in place of general funds. But Otter said, “Nothing is normal about this … process this year, and there is no gravy.” State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna said the issue raises the question of who the endowment reserves, which include earnings on endowment lands, are for. “I do believe that the earnings are for current beneficiaries, and the corpus is for the future,” Luna said. The board agreed to revisit the overall issue in August when it makes endowment distribution decisions.