The state does not owe back payments to vendors on the defunct Idaho Education Network project, according to Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.
And Wasden says the vendors — Education Networks of America and CenturyLink — must return the millions of dollars they received for the mothballed broadband project.
In an Aug. 23 lawsuit, Wasden ratchets up the postmortem battle over the Idaho Education Network. With the project’s contract void, and the broadband system shut down since 2015, attorneys on both sides are escalating what amounts to a big-money probate dispute.
At stake — for the state and the vendors — are millions of taxpayer dollars.
Wasden’s lawsuit makes two main assertions, and they set up a legal showdown between the attorney general and network vendors.
First, Wasden says the state owes no money to vendors.
As the Idaho Education Network contract dispute dragged out in state courts, the state cut off payments to ENA and CenturyLink.
Because the contract has been ruled void, Wasden says, the state has neither a mechanism nor an obligation to pay the vendors.