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Idaho Superintendent Debbie Critchfield addressing students and teachers at Mackay High School in 2023. Watch our interview with her in the video above. | Rett Nelson, EastIdahoNews.com
IDAHO FALLS – Education remains a top priority for state officials, but Idaho Superintendent Debbie Critchfield is looking at ways to distribute funds more effectively.
She’s working with lawmakers on legislation that would give a portion of the state’s budget to school districts and allow local officials to determine how those funds are used.
During a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, Critchfield said her goal is to give school districts more control of state funds, based on priorities and student needs.
“Our state budget doesn’t reflect any type of need-based, student-focused distribution (of funds),” Critchfield says. “A significant amount of money has been appropriated. We need to access it better and send it out in a more effective way.”
The bill is in the preliminary stages, so the details are still being fleshed out. She’s hoping to have a draft written in the next couple weeks to present to education committees.
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This comes in the wake of Gov. Brad Little’s rollout of the 2025 Keeping Promises Plan, which dedicates $136 million toward priority needs in Idaho’s public schools.
Critchfield says an increasing amount of chatter across the state on the rising costs of special education services is what got the ball rolling on this conversation.
It’s been a work in progress over the last two years as she’s spoken with district superintendents, school board members and other administrators across the state.
“We’ve done the work to … advocate on behalf of our districts. We want a student-centered budget, and we also want a budget we can use in a better way,” says Critchfield.
Bonneville School District 93 Superintendent Scott Woolstenhulme says one of their biggest needs is hiring additional school counselors to address mental health concerns among students.
A $4 million budget deficit, combined with the difficulties of finding school counselors, hampers their ability to do that.
“They (counselors) are extremely hard to find, so even if we had the money, I couldn’t guarantee that we’d be able to hire anybody,” he says.
Though he’s appreciative of Critchfield’s approach, he’s doubtful her proposal will make much of a difference.
“Based on the preliminary numbers we have, it’s going to add maybe $800,000 to $1 million to our budget,” says Woolstenhulme. “That’s a quarter of what we need.”
A pandemic-era ruling temporarily changed school funding from an attendance-based model to enrollment-based. That policy change increased the amount of state funds Bonneville School District received.
Around the same time, the legislature passed a bill increasing pay for teachers. Woolstenhulme says the shift to enrollment-based funding led to a need to hire more teachers.
The funding policy expired in 2024 and reverted back to an attendance-based model. This decreased the funding available to District 93.
“It helped our teachers, but from a district budgeting standpoint, it put us in a worse position,” Woolstenhulme says.
For now, they’re relying on savings to bring down the debt as much as possible. The school board is waiting to see what happens in the legislature before deciding whether to propose an increase to the supplemental levy, which passed in 2021.
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“If there is an increase to our school budget, it’s just going to go towards balancing the budget at this point, unless it’s going to be much more than we’re expecting,” he says.
District 93 Superintendent Scott Woolstenhulme during a debate in November. | Courtesy Bonneville County Republican Central Committee Addressing school choice and red tape reductions
The governor’s budget plan also adds an additional $50 million to support education freedom. This hot-button item revolves around school choice and ensuring schools are fair, responsible, transparent and accountable.
Critchfield agrees and fully supports Gov. Little on this point, saying taxpayers should expect nothing less in those areas.
RELATED | Legislature introduces two private school choice bills
Idaho already has multiple options for how education is delivered to students, she says, and offers some additional perspective.
“The crux of this conversation is on the role of the state to pay for that choice,” Critchfield explains. “You’re going to hear multiple opinions on where and how taxpayer dollars enter into that. That’s what should and is going to come out in the coming weeks.”
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Critchfield also referenced President Trump’s newly-created Department of Government Efficiency and said she’s been asked to look at red tape reductions in public schools, specifically state reports focusing on compliance and not outcomes.
“Boy, is there a lot of room within public education to start cutting back on the number of reports our districts are asked to fill out,” Critchfield says. “When we’re talking about a report that just gets filed in a drawer somewhere that no one looks at — why are we doing that? There are better uses of time for school officials.”
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH CRITCHFIELD IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.
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