Idaho lawmakers tackle school maintenance backlog in interim committee

Idaho lawmakers on an interim committee are taking the subsequent couple of months to deal with an $874 million backlog in deferred public college upkeep.

A report launched earlier this 12 months by the Workplace of Efficiency Evaluations discovered it’ll price taxpayers a minimum of $874 million to carry public faculties into “good” bodily situation.

The fee could possibly be a lot larger, although, as a result of not all faculties participated within the report.

The Idaho Supreme Courtroom in 2005 discovered the legislature did not correctly fund college services, with lawmakers ultimately rising the state’s gross sales tax by a penny to cowl these bills. In change, upkeep and operations levies have been eliminated.

Keith Bybee, head of the legislature’s price range division, informed legislators Tuesday the cash generated by the gross sales tax bump wasn’t devoted to highschool tasks.

“The revenues simply flowed into the final fund, so one of many issues that was taking place at the moment was placing these {dollars} in competitors with the remainder of state authorities,” Bybee mentioned.

Faculties can’t depend on bond points to fund capital tasks in Idaho. They want two-thirds of voters in a district to approve a proposal – the best threshold within the nation.

With current document price range surpluses numbering greater than a billion {dollars}, committee members recommended a revolving, low-interest mortgage fund as one suggestion to unravel the issue.

Home Minority Caucus Chair Sally Toone (D-Gooding), who was a longtime rural trainer, mentioned the state ought to shoulder prices to construct services for the vo-tech packages it’s prioritizing faculties to create.

“We’ve needed to scramble to construct a lab in a few of our rural districts for CNA packages, a few of our welding packages or high-tech pc labs,” Toone mentioned.

Some Republicans advocated that constitution faculties must also profit from no matter answer is really helpful, since they at the moment obtain no state cash for services.

Lawmakers will finalize their suggestions in December.

Observe James Dawson on Twitter @RadioDawson for extra native information.

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