idaho legislature

Questions Arise on Idaho Education Network

By Sharon Fisher, 2-09-10

Members of the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) peppered Mike Gwartney, director of the Department of Administration, with questions about the Idaho Education Network (IEN), with a number of them expressing concern that money was being spent to build “networks on top of networks” rather than leveraging existing network infrastructure.

While no state money is at stake—the IEN received $3 million in stimulus funding for its first year, and is receiving approximately $3 million per year for the next two years from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation—any money spent duplicating existing infrastructure can’t be used to improve access in unserved and underserved areas, such as rural Idaho.

“There was a commitment made last year to this committee by Mr. Gwartney that they would not build networks over top of existing networks,” said JFAC co-chair Senator Dean Cameron, R-Rupert. “There was quite a push, resisted by the agency, to do an inventory of what networks were out there before we moved forward.”

“We have not overbuilt anywhere,” stated Teresa Luna, chief of staff of the Department of Administration. “We have not overbuilt or added new infrastructure where it already existed.”

The 2008 Legislature passed a bill to create the IEN, a statewide broadband Internet purportedly for education but which actually would also be used for economic development and, eventually, for state agencies. The purpose of the bill was to provide high-speed access throughout the state, starting with schools.

In January, the Department of Administration announced it had awarded the contracts for IEN, partly to Qwest and partly to a consortium consisting of Syringa Networks and Education Networks of America (ENA). The contracts would be worth $10 million in the first year and up to $50 million over five years, partially funded by the federal government.

When Idaho last awarded a chunk of money to help improve broadband access in Idaho, in 2006, Qwest received $5 million—and, according to a 2007 report, spent the money inefficiently by increasing service in places where it already existed, and charging a high price for it. The result is that not many people got better access, and the cost per new user was much higher for Qwest than for other companies awarded money ($120.83 per customer, compared to as little as $29.76 from another vendor).

In a bipartisan question and answer session that ran far over the scheduled time, several members of JFAC indicated that they had heard from schools in their districts that existing infrastructure was being ignored in favor of constructing new infrastructure—and that, in some cases, was inferior infrastructure to what they had before.

Luna—who is also the sister of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, who championed the IEN project—and Greg Zickau, chief technical officer, responded that in some cases, people were comparing the existing bandwidth to the district with bandwidth provided directly to the high schools by IEN, and comparing the cost of just the bandwidth to additional services that the IEN is providing.

For example, Gooding had 8 million bits per second (Mbps) for the entire district, and IEN purchased 12 Mbps for high school, Luna said, while Hagerman had 7 Mbps for the district and received 15 Mbps for the high school. “There is not a high school we have gone into that has received less bandwidth than before,” she declared. 

Cameron also asked Luna to respond to a rumor he’d heard that Qwest had built ten miles of network fiber to the Rexburg school district though third parties had existing fiber in the area. She replied that it had not been ten miles, but 1,050 feet, to connect the school to the local exchange carrier.

Other services that IEN provides that local Internet service providers might not have include guaranteed quality of service, teleconferencing, support for working with the federal E-Rate program that helps fund telecommunications support, project management, and so on, Luna said. “We’ve seen a number of proposals by providers, that we can save money on IEN, that we’re spending too much money,” Zickau said. “Without fail, every one of them has left off some key component.”

Representative Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, also expressed concern about the sustainability of the IEN, and how it would be funded in ongoing years once it was built. Gwartney said that due to the grants from the stimulus fund and the Albertsons Foundation, there would be no requests from the general fund for the IEN through 2012, but that after 2012 there would need to be a state match for the federal E-Rate funding. She went on to ask about the reliability of that funding and what that match would be. Luna said it would be approximately $3 million per year, and that E-Rate was funded by a $2.25 billion “bucket” created from a fee paid by telephone and cell phone users. It has never been depleted, and the fees associated with it have never changed, she said. Moreover, she added, Idaho has not been receiving back the amount it has paid in, and will receive 73 percent of what it pays in, compared to the 43 percent it receives now. “For every $3 million we spend, E-Rate will kick in $7 million,” she said.

In addition, Gwartney said the IEN could help schools save money in the long run by offering classes online rather than having to hire teachers. For example, if Superintendent Luna needs to hire 400 to 500 math teachers, at salaries of $50,000 per year, “he could probably do the same job with 100 teachers with IEN,” he said. “The notion of how many teachers can be replaced by a computer mechanism is perhaps exaggerated a lttle bit,” deadpanned Representative Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, who taught math for 38 years.

In an unusually direct line of questioning for a JFAC hearing, Cameron asked Gwartney to respond in writing to address rumors he’d heard, such as that Gwartney was involved in a proposal to phase out general funding for the Idaho Digital Learning Academy and Idaho Public Television, and that Idaho Public Television had had to step in to air the State of the State message to Idaho schools after the IEN had been unable to do so. (Some states are using their digital translator networks, such as what Idaho Public Television has, as data networks themselves, a process known as datacasting.)

“This is a very troubling area of the budget,” agreed JFAC co-chair Representative Maxine Bell, R-Jerome.

What did not come up was Syringa Networks, which had been awarded a share of the IEN contract in January, 2009, but which filed suit in December, claiming not only that its superior bid was rejected but that it is being shut out even of the portion of the contract it was awarded—including other contracts it had separately with other parts of Idaho state government. Gwartney had initially made a $300,000 supplemental request for the fiscal 2010 budget for outside legal counsel to deal with the lawsuit, but has since withdrawn that request, he said.

What also did not come up was the fact that neither the state of Idaho nor Qwest applied during the first round of broadband stimulus funding for a share of $4 billion in grants intended to improve access in rural communities, though the state has said it plans to apply in the second round, which begins later this month.

Legislators also seemed concerned about plans by the Department of Administration to consolidate some general IT services within itself, which Gwartney said could save $20 million over the next three to four years. Already, 25 agencies are using the department for such IT support, he said.

“I hope you don’t conclude that the long-term goal is to centralize IT in the department,” Zickau assured the committee, adding that such consolidation had been recommended by the Office of Performance Evaluation in a March, 2008, report. “The department direction should be a federated model of IT governance,” with the department providing standard services on shared platforms, while specialized IT functions continuing to be provided by the agency,” he said.

“This is a significant change of state direction,” Zickau said. “Unless both executive and legislative leaders are behind it, it’s doomed to failure.”

“I give the agency kudos for imagination and ideas, but, candidly, I have a lack of confidence in its abilty to deliver services that have been promised, based on past experience,” Cameron said.

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