The state Board of Education expects the University of Idaho’s search for a new president to take between six months and a year and cost the school at least $90,000.

Tim White resigned the presidency earlier this year to accept a job at the University of California-Riverside. The State Board has appointed a university dean, Steven Daley-Laursen, to serve as temporary president.

UI officials signed a contract with a Los Angeles-based executive search firm in June to help the school find its next president. In 2004, the university spent over $98,000 on its search for White, and about 74 percent of those costs went to the search firm.

The firm charges a fee equal to one-third of the projected first-year salary of the position it recruits for, which means the university will owe the firm an estimated $90,000, or one-third of the expected $270,000 salary of the incoming president. That amount doesn’t include traveling costs the university will also have to pay the firm when it begins consulting with potential candidates.

The money will come from a university budget for the president’s office. (AP)