Boise State, Idaho State Presidents Grilled Over Funding

(Boise, ID) Marlene Tromp and Robert Wagner spent Wednesday morning on defense.

Tromp fielded pointed questions about Boise State University’s ongoing legal bills, as its four-year legal battle with Big City Coffee continues to wind through the courts. Wagner pledged to ensure the state can “trust” Idaho State University with state funding, after returning $850,000 from a botched forensic pathology project.

And as the university presidents appeared before the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, they also were grilled about the state’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion. Boise State cut five full-time jobs when it closed DEI-aligned student centers, Tromp said, but might have to hire staff back as it ramps up holistic student support centers. Idaho State reassigned two full-time employees after closing two DEI-aligned centers, Wagner said.

The Big City legal bills

As she did on Tuesday, during a House Education Committee hearing, Tromp again said Boise State has spent about $1.5 million defending itself in court. She again pointed out that Boise State was obligated to defend itself and its administrators in court.

And on Wednesday, Tromp said an appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court will not add a “significant amount” to Boise State’s legal bills. The next legal move is the university’s call. And Boise State has already vowed to appeal a September District Court jury verdict, which awarded former Big City owner Sarah Jo Fendley nearly $4 million in damages.

Tromp again tried to draw a fine line about where Boise State is getting its money — saying the university is not using taxpayer dollars on its legal fees. The university has said it is using interest income to pay its attorneys.

JFAC members pressed for more details. Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, requested a spending breakdown, including Boise State’s money and funding from the state’s Risk Management Program. Tromp promised to provide JFAC a written summary.

The Big City lawsuit stems from the Boise coffee shop’s brief time on campus. Fendley closed a shop at the Boise State library in October 2020, after 42 days in operation. She has argued that Boise State pushed her off campus, after student activists criticized her vocal support of law enforcement.

Fendley attended Wednesday’s JFAC hearing, sitting two rows behind Tromp. After the hearing, Fendley said the $1.5 million figure did not account for in-house legal counsel and other outside legal counsel. And Fendley said she has racked up $120,000 of her own legal bills since the September verdict.

“This has been a horrific four years, and it continues,” Fendley told Idaho Education News.

A postmortem on a pathology center

In 2022, the Legislature awarded Idaho State $900,000 to build a regional forensic pathology center. Only $53,000 was spent, and the balance of the money went to Bannock County. The project began to fall about in August 2023, when the county backed out of an agreement to build and open the center.

“After Bannock County decided against building the (center), ISU appeared to avoid fiduciary responsibility for the funds it had paid, but which Bannock County never used,” according to a Legislative Services Office report, released by JFAC Wednesday.

Lawmakers aren’t done with the issue. The bipartisan Legislative Council has assigned legislative staff to audit the project.

Despite the tone of the LSO report — and the pending audit — budget-writers took a conciliatory stance Wednesday. Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, JFAC’s Senate co-chair, pointed out that the problems predated Wagner’s January 2024 arrival at Idaho State. Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, praised Wagner for working to get the money back to the state.

Wagner admitted Idaho State mishandled the money. “We should have been responsible for those funds.”

Wagner pledged to follow the Legislature’s spending directives on future projects, drawing praise from Rep. Wendy Horman, JFAC’s House co-chair. Budget-writers routinely add “intent language” to their spending bills, and Horman noted that this language has the force of law.

“It’s not a suggestion,” said Horman, R-Idaho Falls.

House approves ban on mask mandates 

For the second consecutive year, the House passed a bill barring school districts from mandating face masks to prevent disease.

“I truly hope this year will be the final year, (when) we finally get this to the governor’s office for his signature, and put it behind us,” Rep. Rob Beiswenger told the House Wednesday.

Beiswenger, R-Horseshoe Bend, is co-sponsoring House Bill 32 with Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa. The House passed an identical proposal last year, but it didn’t get a hearing in the Senate.

Public schools — as well as city, county and state governments and their various agencies, including public health districts — would be prohibited from requiring masks “for the purpose of preventing or slowing the spread of a contagious or infectious disease.”

Republicans overwhelmingly endorsed the bill, which cleared the House on a 52-16 vote Wednesday. Rep. Rick Cheatum was one of eight GOP members who opposed it.

“This bill is another preemption of local authority,” said Cheatum, R-Pocatello. “Putting a preemption like this in place that doesn’t allow local officials to take action when it may be necessary or be recommended by the local health department … is not the right way to handle a local problem.”

The bill now heads to the Senate.

Committee kills reimbursements for ‘self-directed learning’

A split Senate Education Committee killed a bill that could have allowed parents to receive millions of dollars in reimbursements from public schools.

Under Senate Bill 1017, parents could have received up to 65% of the per-pupil spending that goes to their child’s school — or upwards of $5,000, according to the bill’s author. The money could have gone to parents of “self-directed learners,” nearly 3,600 public school students who meet a rigid set of state-established criteria.

Former state Sen. Steven Thayn said his bill would allow public schools to “stay in the game” in a school choice environment, retaining some state funding while maintaining relationships with parents who might otherwise pull their kids from public school.

“Flexibility is uncertainty, but if we don’t have flexibility we’re going to die,” said Thayn, a former Senate Education chair who served 16 years in the Legislature.

A bipartisan core of senators were uneasy with the bill.

Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, balked at the 65% maximum — a reimbursement designed to model a proposed $5,000 private school tax credit.

Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, drew parallels with the Idaho Home Learning Academy — a massive Malad-based online charter school that offers an $1,800 education savings account to parents. The IHLA model came under sharp scrutiny during a Senate Education hearing last week.

“I’m really struggling seeing the difference,” Cook said. “I can’t get a warm fuzzy on this yet.”

Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, said SB 1017 would funnel money away from schools that still have to assign teachers to monitor self-directed learners.

The bill died on a voice vote. Only two lawmakers supported it: Chairman Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, and Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins.

Bill downsizing school safety board heads to House

The House Education Committee on a split vote advanced a bill to downsize the state’s school safety advisory board, removing public school and law enforcement representatives.

Rep. Ted Hill proposed shrinking the School Safety and Security Advisory Board from 13 members to six. The board has struggled to conduct business due to a lack of quorum, said Hill, R-Eagle. “The size of the board has been problematic.”

The board is responsible for reviewing and modifying the state School Safety and Security program’s guidelines to assess security measures and conduct training. The board is also responsible for weighing funding delivered to school districts.

House Education members debated which seats should be cut — including those reserved for a public school parent, a teacher, a trustee and a superintendent. The bill would also eliminate seats reserved for representatives of the Idaho State Police, Idaho Chiefs of Police Association, Idaho Sheriffs’ Association, Idaho Office of Emergency Management and Idaho Fire Chiefs Association.

Quinn Perry, deputy director for the Idaho School Boards Association, said ISBA and the Idaho Association of School Administrators oppose removing trustee and superintendent seats.

Rep. Kyle Harris, R-Lewiston, asked Perry how many meetings the current school board designee has attended. Perry acknowledged that attendance has been a “problem” for the trustee member.

“That’s not something that we were notified about, and it’s something that I, quite frankly, regret, because we take our appointments that we place on to committees like this very seriously. … I know several school board members who would be chomping at the bit to serve on this.”

Clearwater County Sheriff Chris Goetz, president of the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association, said he was “caught off guard” by the bill. While the sheriffs’ association hasn’t had time to vote on its stance, it would likely oppose removing the law enforcement seats, Goetz told the committee.

“If that needs to be condensed down to one law enforcement representative, we’re probably OK with that, but we’ve got to have somebody from law enforcement that’s dealing with these issues day in and day out.”

Matthew Reiber, chief external affairs and strategy officer for the State Board of Education, said the State Board helped craft the advisory board changes. Rep. Monica Church, D-Boise, asked Reiber whether he would guarantee that the State Board’s appointee would have classroom expertise. Reiber promised that the appointee would.

“We still want the experts in the room,” he said. “We still want all of these people attending.”

Rep. Dan Garner, R-Clifton, moved to amend the bill and reinstate some of the seats. “We’re still whittling the board down,” he said. “It’s very important that you have a school board member on there…to advise what might be able to be implemented easily.”

But the committee, in an 8-4 vote, approved Rep. Lance Clow’s motion to advance the bill without amendment. “The original number of 13 seemed logical at the time, but if we’re not making a quorum, obviously there’s a problem,” said Clow, R-Twin Falls. “I trust that the people making the selections, their appointees will be involved with education.”

The bill now heads to the full House.

New bill would raise cap on community college tuition

A cap on community college tuition would increase 30% under a bill introduced Wednesday.

State law currently limits community college tuition to $2,500 annually. Rep. Lance Clow proposed lifting the ceiling to $3,250 and maintaining a provision that limits tuition hikes to 10% per year.

A statement of purpose for the bill says that community college demand “has never been greater,” yet the colleges are struggling to pay competitive salaries, purchase equipment and maintain facilities.

Clow told the House Education Committee that colleges likely won’t exceed 5% tuition hikes the first year under the new cap, if tuition is increased at all. “A lot of it depends on other factors, including the revenues that come in to cover expenses.”

House Education members unanimously voted to introduce the bill, which could return for a public hearing in the coming days or weeks.

Bullying notification bill clears House

The House also approved a bill requiring parents be notified of “serious” bullying.

House Bill 44 would direct school districts to implement a policy for notifying parents and guardians of bullying that results in suspension. The House last year rejected a similar bill that would have required parental notification for all instances of bullying.

“We’re tailoring it to focus on the most severe instances of bullying,” said Chris Mathias, D-Boise, who’s sponsoring the bill.

There was no debate Wednesday before 25 Republicans voted against it. The bill passed on a 44-25 vote and now heads to the Senate.