OSBE presents scholarship and grants budget; committee asks for outcome data on rural and underserved educator incentives

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee heard from Legislative Services Office analysts and the Office of the State Board of Education on the Scholarships and Grants program, which administers several state scholarship and incentive programs.

Kevin Campbell, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, described the program as largely trustee-and-benefit spending: 99.5% of the program’s outlays cover scholarships and grants, and about 0.5% is personnel. The program is housed administratively in the Office of the State Board of Education and currently shows 1.35 FTP with no vacancies reported for the program itself.

Programs and funding: Campbell listed administered programs: the Rural and Underserved Educator Incentive Program, the Opportunity Scholarship, scholarships for armed forces and public safety officers, GEAR UP-related scholarships and the Idaho Work Study Program. He noted appropriations vary with timing: awards and federal grant cycles can cause year-to-year swings in spending. The Opportunity Scholarship previously received a $7 million appropriation in fiscal year 2021; the Rural and Underserved Educator Incentive Program received legislative appropriations starting FY2023 and additional amounts in subsequent years.

Committee requests for outcomes: Josh Whitworth, executive director of the State Board of Education, told the committee the board will return with more performance data on retention and recruitment as requested. Committee leaders asked specifically for district-level detail showing where rural and underserved incentive recipients are placed and whether the program is meeting recruitment and retention goals. Whitworth also said the agency will analyze performance measures and return more substantive outcome data.

Staffing and IT request: Scholarships and Grants requested $1,375,000 for the Rural and Underserved Educator Incentive Program for FY2026 and separately sought a software engineer position to address a backlog of maintenance and security work on the program’s public-facing databases and application systems. The board said the program’s public interfaces and databases require maintenance that current staffing cannot fully address.

Provenance: The presentation began when Kevin Campbell identified himself and the program (transcript excerpt: "Mr. Chairman, good morning, members of the committee. My name is Kevin Campbell. I'm a budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office. Today, I'm presenting you with the budget for the scholarship and grants program.") and concluded when the committee moved on to other items (transcript excerpt: "If anyone else has other questions, please reach out to the director. Individually, we I saw that we need to move ahead.").