Idaho Bills

Amends and adds to existing law to provide for community college trustee zones and related provisions; to revise provisions regarding trustees of community college districts and to provide an appeals process.

Appropriates $37,519,000 to the State Board of Education for community colleges for fiscal year 2017; exempts appropriation object and program transfer limitations; provides legislative intent relating to system-wide expenditures; and requires an update on the Complete College Idaho initiative.

This is the FY 2017 appropriation to Community Colleges in the amount of $37,519,000. This appropriation provides for increased cost of benefits, the equivalent of a 3% ongoing change in employee compensation, and a nondiscretionary adjustment for enrollment workload decreases. This appropriation includes eight line items. Line item 1 provides $375,500 from the General Fund for the Complete College Idaho efforts. Of this amount, $372,500 is ongoing and $3,000 is one-time. The funding amounts and purposes of the funding are as follows: $242,500 at CSI to address dual credit education services and $133,000 at NIC for student retention and transition efforts. Line item 2 provides $113,200 from the General FundforCSItohireinstructionalsupportstafftodevelopandimplementinstructionalimprovement plansforselectstudentswhoaretakinghigh-riskcoursessuchasbiology, chemistry, andhigh-level math. Lineitem3provides$107,600fromtheGeneralFundtoCSItohireaninstructionaldesigner toimproveonlineandhybridcoursesandworktomaintainanexcellenceinteachingprotocol. Line item 4 provides $91,500 from the General Fund to CSI to hire an institutional researcher to address CSI's internal and external reporting, data analysis, and predictive analytics. Line item 5 provides $400,000 from the General Fund to CWI to narrow the difference between CWI's enrollment workload adjustment (EWA) weighted credit hour value and those same values of CSI and NIC. This funding would narrow the gap by 2.5%. Line item 6 provides $200,000 from the General Fund to CWI to hire three full-time positions to improve the student-to-advisor ratio and to provide outreach to special student populations. Line item 10 provides $1,929,000 from the General Fund to backfill the current and projected decreases in enrollment at the three community colleges. This includes $695,200 to CSI, $618,000 to NIC, and $615,800 to CWI. Line item 11 provides $615,100 to NIC for occupancy costs. This funding will address nearly 111,000 square feet

Amends existing law to revise provisions regarding tuition of out-of-district students, county taxes and other financial support.

Counties which do not have a community college district pay a portion of the community college tuitionofitsresidentstudents. Toensurethateachcountyispayingonbehalfofitsresidentstudents, students fill out paperwork, which the counties then review. The community colleges also send invoices to the counties for the county portion of its resident students. The counties review the invoices to ensure the students listed are indeed county residents, have not exceeded their statutory limits, and have not already been paid for that student in previous invoices. The process of reviewing the residency paperwork from the student and sending out accurate invoices from the community colleges has been cumbersome. Partly due to the lack of definite deadlines in statutes, certificates of residency and invoices have been submitted up to a year after the course was taken. This is problematic for community colleges, because they have had to wait months before receiving payment from some counties. In addition, the counties and the community colleges occasionally dispute the proper procedure, deadlines, and time lines for which the residency paperwork and the invoices should be processed. This bill would accomplish the following: • Create definite deadlines for when students must submit certificates of residency forms, when counties must approve those residency forms, when community colleges must invoice the counties, and when the counties must pay those invoices; • Require counties to pay only for students who have not dropped out of community college courses before the drop deadline; • Clarify terms and definitions about which students are in-district and out-of-district.