Wasden watches out for students

COEUR d'ALENE - Attorney General Lawrence Wasden isn't against public education. He just wants to uphold the Idaho Constitution.

In fact, it's not just today's students but future generations of students he said he's concerned about.

"I've been tagged as the guy who hates education," Wasden said during an editorial board meeting Thursday as part of a North Idaho tour to talk about the state's Land Board. Earlier Thursday he spoke to the Hayden Chamber of Commerce. "My duty is not only to that 14-year-old kid who is in school today, but it's to the 4-year-old who will be in school a couple years from now."

Wasden, one of five members of the Land Board, recently made headlines for not supporting fellow board member and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's proposal for a one-time disbursement of $52.8 million from the state land endowment reserve fund to help offset budget cuts for public schools during the next fiscal year. Luna's proposal failed for lack of a second.

The board eventually approved $22 million on top of its previous $31 million pledge, a total of $53 million of the estimated $90 million fund. That estimate is soft, however, and Luna's original request would have left at most $6 million in the fund.

That vote passed the board Feb. 10 by a vote of 3-2 but left the fund at well below its targeted 5-year-out earnings reserve funds - the cushion the board tries to keep in savings - trimming it to two years.

Now, Wasden said, it's up to the board to ensure it refills those coffers at the best rate it can, as dictated by the Idaho Constitution.

One way to do that is to obtain the maximum long-term financial return on more than 800 lake-front property leases that fall in state endowment lands around Priest Lake and Payette Lake near McCall.

Endowment lands are different from public lands in that they are specifically designated lands controlled by the board to generate money for its beneficiaries, mostly the state's K-12 public schools.

Those lake leases, which pay into the board's funds, are set to expire at the end of the year. They're currently locked into a 10-year rate at 2.5 percent of the property's assessed value. But with a three-year rate freeze in place, those rates are closer to 1.8 percent of the value now, well below market rate, Wasden said.

That's a problem, he said, because the board's sole constitutional responsibility is to maximize long-term financial return for their lands - essentially, for the schools.

"It's an oath I took," Wasden said about the pledge to uphold the board's constitutional requirements. "This is what we're supposed to care about."

Coming before the board at its March 16 meeting in Boise are the new lease proposals. The current pitch is to charge a sliding rate between 1 and 4 percent of assessed property value.

But that rate would be based on a 10-year rolling average, which Wasden said would average around 2.2 percent of the value, even less than what it is now.

That wouldn't uphold the constitutional requirement, he said, since the board could, and should, get more.

"I can't rob future students," he said.