State education board office requests new workforce grant, cites IT, safety, audit transfers as drivers of staff growth

Kevin Campbell, a budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, presented the Office of the State Board of Education (OSB) budget and described recent program transfers and enhancements. He said Idaho Code section 33-101 creates the state board and that OSB now houses administration, IT and data management, and the school safety and security program. "The executive director of OSB is Mr. Joshua Whitworth," Campbell said, and introduced Whitworth for questions.

OSB Executive Director Joshua Whitworth told the committee the board has centralized functions previously handled by individual institutions, including internal audit, risk management and portions of IT and school safety. "Bringing [audit and risk management] centrally allows us to focus and make sure that we're doing standard policies across all of those," Whitworth said.

Campbell reported OSB has 84.25 authorized FTEs with eight vacancies and a five-year average authorized FTE count of 55.95; he said the lower five-year average reflects…