The Moscow School District is not paying for the lawsuit challenging House Bill 93, said Superintendent Shawn Tiegs.
The district joined a coalition that filed a lawsuit with the Idaho Supreme Court this week seeking to block the state’s new private education tax credit. After the Moscow school board voted Tuesday to join the lawsuit, supporters of HB 93 slammed the district for using taxpayer money to finance it.
But this wasn’t true, Tiegs said Friday. Moscow isn’t paying attorney fees to Hawley Troxell, the Boise-based law firm hired to argue the case. And the district has “zero financial liability,” regardless of the result, he said.
Moscow joined the lawsuit because taxpayer-funded private education should have to play by the same rules as public education, Tiegs said.
“We just want a system that is the same — the same levels of accountability, the same levels of non-discrimination,” he said.
It’s unclear how the other eight plaintiffs are dividing attorney fees. One gave a terse response Friday.
“The coalition is working together to share the cost,” said Idaho Education Association spokesman Mike Journee.
Along with the school district and teachers’ union, the coalition includes two advocacy groups — the Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution and Mormon Women for Ethical Government — and several individuals, including former Republican state superintendent Jerry Evans and current Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls.
The coalition has requested reimbursement for legal fees and other costs if it’s successful, and the request noted all plaintiffs will be asking for repayment, including the Moscow School District.
That’s what made Chris Cargill, president and CEO of the Mountain States Policy Center, think the school district was paying for the lawsuit. On Wednesday, he published a column criticizing the district for using “taxpayer money… to sue taxpayers.”
“The Moscow School District is on the wrong side of history,” wrote Cargill, who lobbied for HB 93 during this year’s legislative session. “The district’s school board voted Tuesday night to sue the people of Idaho over the state’s new education choice tax credit.”
State attorneys presumably will defend HB 93, and taxpayers will be on the hook if they lose.
But Tiegs also seemed puzzled by the request for fees. He concluded that it must be boilerplate language. Still, the district signed an agreement with the coalition’s attorneys that the other plaintiffs — not Moscow — will be paying, he said. And if the coalition wins its case and is awarded fees and costs, Moscow’s share will be $0.
“Technically, it’s requesting attorney fees, but there will be none,” Tiegs said.
Cargill acknowledged Friday that he didn’t ask the school district about whether it was funding the lawsuit before publishing his column.
But he doubled down on his claim that district money is being expended, and he continued to point to the attorney fee language as a smoking gun. Additionally, district resources must have already been spent on weighing the lawsuit, he said.
“Even if they’re not spending money on the lawsuit, per se, they still spent staff time,” Cargill said. “They called a special meeting this week to decide to join it.”
