Please understand that I am not in a position to personally criticize Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield.
In my judgment, she is a very good person, intelligent and well-intentioned when it comes to the education of Idaho children.
But with important and complex education issues coming before the Idaho Legislature, being a good person with good intentions isn't enough.
Avoiding confusion on a topic as diverse as House Bill 521, the school facilities law, requires focused leadership based on real-world school finance experience, armed with data and a commitment to the Idaho Constitution.
The Governor did an excellent job leading the discussion on school facilities issues. There is not enough funding to properly maintain schools and there is a very high bar for building new buildings with two-thirds approval from voters.
I felt like I had a good understanding of the problem and the solution. It cost more money.
The leaderless Legislature settled the issue with HB 521 and eventually four so-called trailer bills.
Although money was a problem, the first item in the bill was to cut individual and corporate tax rates and use more than $100 million in sales taxes to pay bond interest. So now and in the future, we're going to have to reduce state revenues to address this problem.
Lawmakers acknowledged that the situation still calls for local property tax participation, but perhaps at a lower rate. Not only did lawmakers not make it easier to pass bonds by addressing the two-thirds requirement, it also further limited the process. Lawmakers made the problem more difficult to address by eliminating the August election date.
They decided that state facilities funds would be distributed to districts based on average daily attendance, completely ignoring the enormous differences in per-pupil assessed value between districts.
In essence, lawmakers are saying, 'We know we have varying capabilities when it comes to collecting taxes, but we will support the richest as well as the poorest.'
There was no attempt to equalize funding from both sources into account to provide some degree of fairness to everyone.
By allocating facility funds based on the ADA, local circumstances were not taken into consideration at all. Areas with significant unmet facility problems were treated the same as areas with less urgent needs.
In terms of participation in school facilities funding, concerns were raised about the four-day school week and minimum school hours. But that was delayed by requiring the State Board of Education to review the requirements.
Discussion of financial incentives for districts to exceed minimum instructional hours would have been more appropriate, especially if student outcomes improve.
There are many other problems with HB 521. I'll save that for another problem. However, I would like to point out the most glaring problem with the bill.
This is a clear violation of the single subject matter requirement set forth in the Idaho Constitution and Article III, Section 16.
Therefore, the Idaho Constitution expressly prohibits legislation encompassing more than one topic. Anyone who reads HB 521 and the Idaho Constitution may conclude that HB 521 is a clear violation.
What makes many of the subjects of HB 521 so dangerous is that it sometimes becomes more of a so-called “Christmas tree” bill that adds bad public policy to good public policy goals. Bad public policy additions would never be passed if they were researched, debated, and considered on their own.
Several lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the functionality of HB 521, but ultimately voted for it because, as they put it, “it’s better than what’s there.”
Rather, we believe that “we can do better.”
My hope is that some individual or group can establish standing to challenge HB 521 in court and return Idaho to the requirements of Article III, Section 16 of the Idaho Constitution.
This situation is too important to ignore.
Republican Jerry Evans represented Idaho public schools from 1979 to 1995.