House Education Committee introduces RS32040 to create public education facilities grant fund

BOISE — The Idaho House Committee on Education voted Jan. 28 to introduce RS32040, a draft bill that would establish a Public Education Facilities Fund to provide need-based grants to school districts for construction, remodels, deferred maintenance and emergency repairs.

The bill’s sponsors, Representative Rod Furness (District 31) and Representative Sonya Galaviz (District 16), told the committee the measure would convert an older loan-and-grant program into a grant-only fund and prioritize districts with the greatest demonstrated need, with an emphasis on rural districts that lack bonding capacity.

RS32040, as explained by Furness, would repeal prior legislation that left about $25 million in an unused account and transfer that balance into the new fund. The bill would also permit transfer of a portion of the public school health insurance participation fund — about $57,000,000 was cited in the committee discussion — with sponsors proposing an initial transfer of roughly half of that balance to seed the new program.

“Sometimes schools have an emergency or just have a safety issue, and they just need a little bit more money,” Representative Furness said, citing an elementary school in Salmon, Idaho, where building problems prompted a local bond after repeated failures. Representative Galaviz said the grants are intended to cover the “delta” between what some rural districts can bond for and what they need to build or repair schools.

Under the draft, the State Board of Education’s office would administer grants and assess applications based on documented need. Applicants would be required to submit a detailed plan, copies of bids, three years of budgets and documentation of bond efforts (including how many bond attempts failed), and must state whether the facility is unsafe or unhealthy. The fund would be explicitly barred from paying for athletic facilities such as tracks, football fields or jumping pits.

The bill also includes a mechanism to recover funds if projects are overfunded, and language was added to transfer and strike statutory provisions consistent with the new grant-only approach. Sponsors said a committee including the Division of Public Works would help review technical aspects of projects.

Committee members asked several substantive questions during the introductory hearing. Representative Clow asked whether the fund would be exhausted by a few large projects and whether there would be a cap on individual grants. Representative Nelson asked the sponsors to provide comparative data on taxable property value across districts to illustrate differences in bonding capacity. Representatives Behar and Harris asked for clarity on whether general fund support would be open-ended, and whether schools that accept funds would be required to use grants to pay existing bond debt before other uses. Representative Hawkins asked why the older fund was underutilized; sponsors said the prior application process was onerous and constrained local control.

Representative Sauter moved to introduce RS32040 for hearing. The committee approved the motion by voice vote; the chair voted aye and the motion carried. Sponsors and committee members said they would provide supplemental materials — including a spreadsheet of assessed facility needs and clarifications on the definition of “rural” used for prioritization — when the bill is printed for public hearing.

What happens next

RS32040 was introduced for public hearing and will be printed for a future committee hearing. Committee members requested additional information (a breakdown of district needs, proposed grant limits, the legal definition of rural for prioritization, and details about the proposed transfers) to inform deliberations when the bill is scheduled for a full hearing.