NIC trustees: No new taxes
COEUR d'ALENE - The North Idaho College Board of Trustees decided Tuesday on how to finance a new $15 million Career Technical Education facility without raising taxes.
After reviewing several potential options, the trustees decided to use $11.5 million of its capital reserve funding, $2.5 of the college's operating reserves and possibly another $1 million in revenue anticipation bonds at the end of construction.
"I think it is important that we send a pretty clear message through the news media that this is what this money was reserved for. This is what it's going to be spent for and there is no tax increase," said Trustee Ron Nilson.
"We've done our fiduciary responsibility, which was to manage this account the way it was supposed to be managed," he continued. "We don't want any misunderstanding that this is going to cost taxpayers money. This is exactly what this money was proposed for."
Most of the trustees were concerned about tapping too deeply into the college's reserve funds while they are also looking to partner with University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College on a joint-use facility in the education corridor.
However, NIC's new Vice President of Finance, Chris Martin, assured the board that there would be approximately $1.6 million in reserve funding left over to cover any expense related to the joint-use facility.
The 100,000-square-foot Career Technical Education facility will be located on 40 acres that NIC already owns on the Rathdrum Prairie next to the Kootenai Technical Education Campus on Lancaster Road.
The goal is to complete the building by the fall of 2016 when the college's welding school will lose its current lease and has to be relocated.
Now that the location and the financing mechanism is in place, the administration will put together an advisory group to develop the bidding documents for a design-build contact for the new building.
NIC President Joe Dunlap said he anticipates having a proposal for the trustees to review at their next board meeting in August.
"If the proposal is approved, we could break ground in the spring of next year," he said.