Idaho Judge Appoints Special Master When Legislation Falls Short

Idaho State District Court Judge Deborah Bail announced on November 20, 2002 that she will appoint veteran Idaho architect Charles Hummel as special master to conduct a $375,000 assessment of every run-down school building in Idaho, with the idea of ordering repairs based on the report. The court has ruled the state's system of funding school construction unconstitutional.

Judge Bail warned on November 12 that it was considering ordering a master because although "the Idaho Constitution places the responsibility for school safety very squarely on the shoulders of the Legislature," the court must enforce the law until lawmakers devise a way to fix the facilities funding system. The court added on the 20th that money should be spent on improving schools, not on long-term litigation.

Both announcements come in the midst of hearings that the court is holding in Idaho's long-running school finance lawsuit. These hearings, which started in July with school districts reporting on crumbling foundations, moldy floors, and broken fire alarms, and resumed on November 12 for about two weeks, will continue in January. The hearings are the court's latest attempt to resolve the case.

In 1997, a number of school districts formed the Idaho Schools for Equal Educational Opportunity (ISEEO) and filed an adequacy suit against the state, ISEEO v. State. In 2000, the Legislature passed a loan program for school health and safety issues, but in February 2001, the District Court ruled that program unconstitutional because it disproportionately affected poor districts that could not afford to pay off the loans. The Legislature then created a new program that pays some of the interest on facilities improvement levies passed by voters, but many districts say that the program is insufficient. Some districts are ineligible to receive state money, while others cannot pass levies at all because a supermajority at the polls is required. In October 2001, the court said that it would impose its own solution if the Legislature did not take further action to correct this statewide problem.

Lawyers for the State have argued that the plaintiff districts have enough money to make the necessary repairs, but the need for repairs and renovations is not in dispute. The court's statements are unusual because they raise the possibility of appointing a special master to coordinate the assessment of 351 problem school buildings. Idaho has not assessed its schools since 1992-1993.

Prepared November 21, 2002