Appropriates $564,958,700 to the State Board of Education and the Board of Regents of the University of Idaho for college and universities and the Office of the State Board of Education for fiscal year 2018; provides certain reappropriation authority; provides legislative intent for systemwide needs; provides legislative intent for reporting on the Complete College Idaho initiative; and exempts appropriation object and program transfer limitations.

ThisistheFY2018appropriationtotheStateBoardofEducationforCollegeandUniversitiesintheamount of $564,958,700. This appropriation provides for increased cost of benefits, an increase for statewide cost allocation, and inflationary adjustments. The appropriation also provides for an ongoing 3% merit-based increase in employee compensation for permanent employees to be distributed at the discretion of agency heads and institution presidents. Additionally, it provides a decrease in nondiscretionary adjustment for enrollment workload decreases and an increase for endowment earnings. Also included is $329,400 one-time from the General Fund to replace computerequipmentatLewis-ClarkStateCollegeand$235,400one-timeofdedicatedfundsforreplacement items at the University of Idaho. This appropriation includes nine line items. Line item 2 provides 20.00 FTP and $2,088,800 ongoing from the General Fund to Boise State University to expand program options and implement new initiatives related to economic and workforce development. This line item included the following aspects: (1) Expand COOP Program wherein students participate in experience-based academic courses, at the cost of $567,800; (2) Venture College Program expansion with focus on entrepreneurial skill development, at the cost of $381,500; (3) Expand bridge to career programming to equip students with fluency of professional skills and industry awareness, at the cost of $153,500; (4) Launch new Boise State X Employer Educational Program to expand degree completion options for working students with employer support, at the cost of $333,100; (5) Development of a new PhD program in computing and computer science, cybersecurity, and computational science and engineering specializations to meet industry needs, at the cost of $652,900. Line item 4 provides 7.01 FTP and $1,667,200 ongoing from the General Fund for occupancy costs to the four institutions. Of this appropriation, $425,100 is for Boise State University, $109,100 is fo