Legislative budget-writers will consider a plan to keep broadband in Idaho high schools until the summer of 2016.

But most of the details will have to wait until Tuesday morning.

On Monday, Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee co-chairman Dean Cameron was cryptic about the Idaho Education Network budget proposal.

“We’re finally at a spot where we feel we have to move forward,” Cameron told reporters Monday morning, after announcing broadband would be on Tuesday morning’s committee agenda.

Money for the system will run out by the end of the month. And last week, Cameron told Bryan Clark of the Post Register that there was a 90 percent chance the system would go dark by the end of the month.

On Monday, Cameron spoke about a plan to protect schools and students from a shutdown — and then talked about what won’t be in the plan:

No “bridge contract.”

JFAC has ruled out an idea from Gov. Butch Otter’s administration — a one-year contract, identical to the current, voided network contract, that would be in effect from July through June 2016. The Otter administration had hoped a bridge contract would qualify the state for federally administered “e-Rate” funds — but budget-writers have been skeptical about this idea from the start.

No language to authorize back payments.

JFAC is also rejecting the idea of giving the Otter administration the go-ahead to make back payments to network contractors. The state put these payments on hold in November, when District Judge Patrick Owen first ruled the network contract void. With this ruling still in place, budget-writers are not willing to give the state the authority to make back payments — with Cameron saying such payments would constitute a misuse of public funds.

No direct payments to school districts. Cameron said the plan will not involve a new state contract — nor direct payments to schools to pursue their own broadband contracts.

The bottom line is also unclear.

Cameron did say it would take $2.4 million to keep the system online through June 30 — not the $1.6 million originally proposed by Otter. The governor has requested $10.5 million for 2015-16. “That will be an item of discussion,” Cameron said.

However, JFAC might not take up the 2015-16 funding request Tuesday, said Sen. Shawn Keough, a committee vice chair. “It is also safe to say that solutions beyond this school year are still very much in flux,” Keough said in an email.

Cameron was also evasive when asked if the state Department of Administration would still have a role in overseeing the project.

“Define, ‘involved,’” Cameron told reporters.

“Maybe we should see what happens tomorrow,” said Keough, R-Sandpoint.

John Goedde, the former Senate Education Committee chairman who is Otter’s point man on the broadband issue, also was in the dark about the details.

“The co-chairs have not shared whatever they are drafting,” Goedde said in an email Monday. “This is not unusual in the process. We will need to wait and see what comes up.”

Idaho Education Network spokeswoman Camille Wells also declined comment, saying network officials haven’t seen the proposal.