The manager of the depleted Idaho School Benefit Trust said Monday that member school districts and charters may receive more information on the potential financial impact next week, maybe by Monday.

The trust’s board members, the Idaho Department of Insurance and Blue Cross of Idaho — the trust’s third party benefits administrator — are discussing solutions every day, according to Debbie Hainke, benefits manager of the trust.

“I know everybody thinks we’re sitting on stuff, but it’s not true,” Hainke told EdNews on Monday. “We’re not sitting on anything. We just don’t have decisions yet.”

The trust required member districts and charters to renew their membership for another year by July 1. Then just two weeks later, members were told the trust had exhausted its reserves and they are responsible for covering the shortfall, according to an email from Hainke. The trust’s fund balance has been dwindling for five years and its latest audit from August 2025 showed “catastrophic scales of loss,” according to the Department of Insurance.

EdNews asked Hainke why districts weren’t notified earlier about the trust’s financial situation, before they were asked to renew. 

“That wasn’t intentional,” she said. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t we’re out of money. It was the reserves are — and so I’m not going to talk to you anymore because you’re going to quote everything I say.”

The trust’s sponsoring organization, the Idaho School District Council, conducted a regular board meeting on Monday during the Idaho Association of School Administrator’s annual summer leadership conference.

During the meeting, Hainke said the Idaho School Benefit Trust’s board members have to approve any decision on how to proceed, and the Department of Insurance has the final say. 

“They’re going to scrub through everything,” she said. “They’re not going to pass along anything or approve anything that doesn’t smell good in the Department of Insurance review.”

The council’s board members and Executive Director Dale Layne discussed the trust’s financial crisis, but acknowledged the limits of the council’s role.

“The trust is … privy to information that we’re not right now, and we’re waiting to hear from them,” West Jefferson Superintendent Shane Williams said.

Layne told EdNews that the council doesn’t really have a role in the trust’s financial situation. They are separate entities. He is trying to figure out if there is something the council can do to help, but at this point, he’s not sure.

“If it falls back to districts, it’s going to be a burden,” Layne said.

An ex-officio representative of the council, Robin Stanley, said the problem is the trust listened too loudly to the cries of poverty coming from school districts.

“Bottom line is the reason we’re in trouble now is because we did too good a job of negotiating lower rates, and that allowed our revenues to be eaten up,” Stanley said.

Hainke said it’s true the board worked really hard over the past 10 years to get the lowest rates possible for school districts and charter schools.

“Had anybody had a crystal ball and known that the claims were going to skyrocket the last few years, they probably would have made different decisions,” Hainke said. “But they knew that the school districts were on tight budgets and trying to do the best that they could to keep the rates down.”

The trust had $22.5 million saved up in 2020, but by 2024 the fund balance was down to $2 million. One of the trustees, Gaylen Smyer, told EdNews last week that the board was aware the balance was shrinking, but the trustees thought they were “navigating our way through this.”

In the afternoon, IASA Executive Director Andy Grover discussed the trust’s situation with superintendents in a breakout session at the summer conference.

“I’ve got calls from many of you talking about, ‘What the heck do we do?'” Grover said.

He said the trust’s shortfall is estimated between $13 million to $15 million. His first thought was to dissolve the trust, but he said there is some contractual language that says the insurance companies can go after every member school district and charter.

“We want to keep the trust together and only answer to one person instead of going out to each of the individual (local education agencies),” he said.

He said there are lots of people working on this right now and it seems like things change by the hour.

“They’re very cognizant that districts don’t have a ton of money on the side, and they’re trying to figure out the best way forward to get us through this,”  Grover said.