A survey of school districts that found big savings after the districts secured their own vendors for broadband service to replace the defunct Idaho Education Network showed a cost per megabit of $43.96, compared to the $80.67 the state was paying vendors under the IEN contract. Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, noted that three school districts in her legislative district stayed with the previous vendor, Education Networks of America, and saw their costs double. Legislative budget analyst Robyn Lockett said, “In some instances it is higher for the same services. I can’t speak for why districts did that.”

Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said, “In some cases they did it just to prevent interrupting service. It is probably the high-water mark.” He noted that Cassia County, one of the school districts in his legislative district, “found three vendors less expensive, but still stayed with ENA because of the interruption issue, so they will make the transition in the summer.”

JFAC members pointed to some districts that saw dramatically lower costs. The Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy, for example, dropped from $7,577 a month on the IEN to $370 a month from Time Warner Cable, and increased its bandwidth from 18 megabits per second to 50. Fruitland school district switched to Farmer’s Mutual Telephone Co. from the IEN and saw the price fall from $6,788 a month to just $100 for the same bandwidth.

“We’re hearing these stories,” Lockett told the lawmakers in response to their questions. “This is the information they’re telling us.” Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, said, “It kind of begs the question whether you need a statewide network.” Amid some laughter, Cameron referred to Guthrie as “Captain Obvious.”

Asked about the issue by reporters, Cameron said he shouldn’t have been teasing. A statewide network could have some advantages, he said. “It’s obvious we’ve been overpaying for the service now, but that was based on the vendors and the contracts that were let six years ago,” he said.

The joint budget committee’s decision this morning to provide funds to the state Department of Education for broadband service next year to distribute to school districts – as it did for the remainder of this year after the IEN contract was declared illegal – is a one-year decision. “For this next year, it says we’re staying on the same path we’re on,” Cameron said, “and we’ll evaluate what to do for 2017.”

He said, “It’s obviously clear that they were charging what I would call a premium dollar for those services. … I do think the marketplace is different than it was six years ago. There were a number of entities that were left out under the previous contract,” and now they’re stepping up, he said.

Asked about the state Department of Administration’s decision a week ago to declare an emergency and grant a $1.88 million, no-bid six-month contract to CenturyLink to continue broadband service to 16 state agencies – which previously had been signed up under the IEN contract, for which CenturyLink was partnered with Education Networks of America – Cameron said, “Was it the wisest choice? I’m not sure it was. But that’s the choice that was made.”

“I think you’ll see a response to that” when JFAC sets the Department of Administration budget on Thursday morning, Cameron said. “We’ll address that for the next year.”