State Board of Education seeks funding for educator incentive, software position and reports timing-driven spending swings

Kevin Campbell, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee that the Scholarships and Grants program (housed in the Office of the State Board of Education) administers five programs, including the Opportunity Scholarship, the Bridger and Underserved Educator Incentive Program and the Idaho Work Study Program.

Campbell said the program’s spending is timing-sensitive because scholarship award cycles do not align perfectly with the state fiscal year, and that 99.5% of the program’s spending is trustee and benefit payments while personnel costs are roughly half a percent.

Josh Whitworth, executive director of the State Board of Education, told the committee the office is responsible for multiple public-facing scholarship databases and that “these systems require maintenance, upgrades and security enhancements” and that a backlog of work exceeds current staffing capacity. “It is something we will be looking at immensely over the next year,” Whitworth said about measuring performance and outcomes for the programs.

The Office of the State Board requested $1,375,000 in FY2026 for the Bridger and Underserved Educator Incentive Program and requested $124,000 for a software engineer position to support application and database maintenance. The office also requested $1,200 to correct an error in the FY2025 CEC for the program, Campbell said.

Senators asked for outcome data. Representative Miller and Cochair Horman asked that the office return with district‑level data showing which districts received rural and underserved educator incentives, the amounts, and recruitment and retention outcomes to assess program impact.

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The State Board of Education said it will provide more detailed performance and district-level data on incentive recipients and metrics showing whether the programs meet intended goals.