House education committee members call for deeper review of funding, studies on school finance and program impacts

BOISE, Idaho — Following the committee’s business on March 6, members of the Idaho House Committee on Education debated several budgetary and policy issues and urged more in-depth review outside the regular session to clarify how education funding streams interact and affect rural districts, special education, virtual-learning programs and higher-education staffing.

Committee members said the current legislative budget book and separate program lines can obscure how funds are allocated. Representative Harris questioned consolidation of several line items into “student support” and flagged what appeared to be separate entries for the Idaho Digital Learning Academy and Idaho Virtual Academy; Representative Clow explained the programs are distinct, saying IDLA is a statewide program that offers online classes to districts while Idaho Virtual Academy is a charter school funded through the public school formula.

“IDLA was carved out of the public…children’s programs and treated as a separate line item,” Clow said, noting that the apparent change in the budget book reflects line-item presentation rather than a new program.

Committee members also raised long-standing concerns about relying on loans rather than grants for school facility projects. Representative Mathias and others warned that overreliance on loans had contributed to prior court scrutiny of Idaho’s school funding and said more grant funding for rural facilities could ease local burdens.

Members discussed a range of technical and programmatic matters that they said require fuller examination, including:

- Special education federal reporting and compliance requirements, and how a move to federal block grants could change state reporting and spending decisions; Representative Clow proposed considering waivers or state-designed approaches to handle special education reporting burdens. - Residency funding for physicians: Representative Thais pointed to a higher-education presentation showing about 46 medical residencies and roughly $28 million in annual line-item support; she warned the state may need to increase residency funding to expand the physician workforce. - Community college staffing and career-technical education: members noted pay and credentialing challenges for community college instructors and cited a $10 million appropriation to grow CTE capacity.

Several members suggested convening off-session briefings or joint interim meetings with Senate counterparts and JFAC (Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee) staff to allow deeper, non-committee-of-the-week reviews of the funding formula, rural needs, program outcomes and state-versus-local responsibilities. Representative Tanner and others volunteered to participate in extended off-session work to better understand how funding flows and how program rules affect districts.

Chairman Pickett asked members to forward recommendations for the committee’s presentation to JFAC; he said the committee’s formal presentation was scheduled for the following morning. "If you have any further ideas or suggestions, please forward them to me and I'll incorporate them into our committee presentation before JFAC," he said.

Committee members did not take formal votes on specific budget requests during the discussion; instead, they agreed on the need for further study and coordination with fiscal staff.

The conversation covered multiple programs by name — including Idaho Digital Learning Academy, Idaho Virtual Academy, Advance Opportunities, and references to House Bill 93 and potential changes at the U.S. Department of Education — and emphasized the differing needs of rural and urban districts when considering funding reforms.