By Ruth Brown, Idaho Reports  

The Department of Health and Welfare is now asking the Attorney General’s Office to pick up the tab for legal fees after the court dismissed a case involving the office’s investigation into the use of community partner grants by the department.  

The Attorney General’s Office filed a petition against the department regarding the Community Partner Grants Program distributions in March. IDHW responded by filing a lawsuit. Now, both legal actions have been dismissed after the special prosecutor on the case withdrew the requests for civil investigative demands, or CIDs.  

But, because IDHW hired outside counsel, a memo filed Monday in the case states the department accrued more than $119,000 in legal fees at Gjording Fouser PLLC, all of which it asks the Attorney General’s Office to pay for. 

“The CIDs, in this case, should have never been served on Petitioners, and Petitioners should not have been forced to take this action,” the document states. 

The case stems from when the Legislature distributed $72 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to address learning loss for children ages 5-13. The attorney general’s office claimed in court documents that more than $14 million of that money went to ineligible programs.  

Adams County Prosecutor Chris Boyd is assigned to the case as a special prosecutor after the court deemed it a conflict of interest for an in-house attorney to pursue the case. The Attorney General and his deputies are required by Idaho law to defend the state.  

IDHW has repeatedly said a deputy attorney general offered them counsel on the community partner grants, prior to the legal action. 

Boyd withdrew the demand for CID’s, in part because of a legislative services audit released in August. 

“There is no question that (IDHW’s) counsel was employed because of a conflict in representation by Attorney General Labrador,” the request states. 

“Attorney General Labrador initiated an action against his own clients for which he lacked statutory authority and was based upon a misreading of appropriations language, then attempted to enforce the CIDs unreasonably,” the document states. “Then, Respondents withdrew the CIDs based upon the issuance of an audit report, even though Petitioners had noted that the audit mechanism was the appropriate way to investigate this matter from the outset of this litigation.” 

The Attorney General’s Office had not filed a response as of Tuesday afternoon.