(UPDATED, Nov. 14, with results from vote canvass.)
The Nampa School District doesn’t plan to pay for a recount in November’s razor-thin supplemental levy election, the Idaho Press reported.
Trustees met Tuesday night, for the first time since the Nov. 5 election. Voters rejected Nampa’s two-year, $24.15 million supplemental levy, as the proposal fell 11 votes shy of the simple majority needed to pass. All told, 7,478 people voted in the election.
While that’s a close result, it’s not close enough to trigger a recount at county expense. That means the Nampa district would need to pony up for the recount. That would cost the district $2,900, or $100 per precinct, the Idaho Press reported.
If a recount is off the table, the next option is to run another levy. The district cannot run another election until March, but its existing two-year, $18.75 million levy is still on the books until June 30.
Nampa’s general fund budget is about $96.5 million, and district officials said Tuesday that they would need to cut programs without another levy, the Idaho Press reported.
Nampa had hoped to use the $24.15 million levy to maintain teaching positions, finance extracurricular programs, purchase curriculum and classroom technology and cover an annual independent audit.
Canyon County officials canvassed last week’s election results Wednesday morning. The numbers in Nampa’s levy were unchanged.