Idaho legislators have recently looked at three pieces of legislation that affects North Idaho College.
The first, House bill 385, involves the manner that the college gets funding from state liquor sales.
“It doesn’t change the amount, just how we get it,” said Vice President of Communications and Marketing Mark Browning.
In the current system, a portion of the price of every bottle of purchased liquor goes into a fund run by the State Board that distributes the money to each community college twice a year.
House bill 385 revises the process and allows community colleges to be paid on a quarterly basis directly by the state liquor dispensaries.
“It streamlines it [the process] and makes it a little more efficient in the distribution, and that’s a good thing,” Browning said.
The bill was passed with no opposition in both the state House and Senate, and is awaiting the governor’s signature, as of March 1.
According to Browning, the governor is expected to sign it into law.
The second bill recently looked at by legislators was House bill 411, introduced by Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls.
This bill would have redistricted counties for board of trustee elections for all Idaho community colleges.
The bill was introduced in the House, and it was brought to the House Education Committee for a vote, who ultimately decided to place an indefinite hold on the bill.
“In essence, it means they will not act on it,” Browning said.
According to Browning, the bill lacked the support of even one community college in the state, and was unable to gain favor by the Education Committee due to what was seen as complicated, inefficient and unnecessary redistricting.
The final piece of legislative action involved the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee (JFAC) passing the community college appropriation suggested by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter in his state of the state address.
The appropriation consists of $1 million the governor suggested be distributed to community colleges in the state.
NIC agreed to give up its share if the appropriation passes in exchange for an enrollment equity adjustment.
“It was pretty in line with the governor’s recommendations,” Browning said. “The only difference was that they included a percent raise for employees, where the governor had suggested a fund tied to state revenues. If state revenues met a certain level, money would kick in that would be up to 3 percent, merit based.”
The appropriation passed JFAC unanimously, and is expected to pass both the House and Senate.
