For as long as Boundary County Superintendent Jan Bayer can remember, a supplemental levy has failed in November.
What usually happens next: Trustees re-run the levy the next election date and it narrowly passes.
But that second-time-around success is never guaranteed, and the uncertainty creates stress and instability for teachers and administrators, Bayer said. The district is in that kind of gray area right now — reeling from two major losses, preparing for another election and the reality that if the levy fails again, they’re going to have to lay off around 25 staff members.
Last month, trustees proposed a $10.5 million bond to replace Valley View Elementary. Built in 1948, the school is one major event away from being unusable, Bayer said. The measure failed with 46% support.
The district’s two-year, $4.8 supplemental levy also failed with 46% support. The levy ask has remained the same since 2015.
“They see that they get to vote on a tax and they vote no,” Bayer said of her constituents.
Trustee Teresa Ray agreed with Bayer but added that many people vote no for an adjacent reason.
“A lot of people think that the state of Idaho should fund public education in full,” Ray said. “That’s a big chunk.”
For many voters, Bayer said it doesn’t matter that their local school district would lose sports, extracurricular activities and electives — they just want lower taxes.
District leaders are planning for what happens if the levy fails, including layoffs and a reduction in programs, while also examining alternatives for replacing the crumbling Valley View Elementary.
Mandated special education services soak up large portion of budget
The Boundary County district serves 1,315 students at the very top of Idaho’s panhandle.
The district’s remote location has drawn new residents who lean anti-government and anti-regulation.
“Idaho does not regulate homeschooling so we’ve become a hub for that,” Bayer said. “And a group that just doesn’t want to pay taxes no matter what.”
Many newcomers are also retirees, Ray added, “who do not believe they should be paying taxes, especially not for school-aged children.”
Despite the new constituency, Bayer said the district has to run a tax to provide the thorough, uniform and free public education mandated by the state’s Constitution.
“The most frustration I have now is we have an unfunded mandate for special education,” Bayer said, referring to the state’s $80 million gap in special education funding.
Special education services are expensive, especially in a rural area with few healthcare providers for things like speech, occupational and physical therapies. And the district can’t cut back on special ed services to balance its budget.
Bayer said her frustration isn’t with the requirement to educate all students, it’s with the lack of state funding to accomplish it.
“I believe in educating everyone,” Bayer said. “But we need the funds to do it.”
She noted that homeschool families reach out for services for their children with disabilities, which Boundary County provides.
The district spends about $1.8 million a year on special education funding. That pays for everything from 30 minutes of extra reading instruction to extensive services for children with profound disabilities.
“You’re looking at the minute you tie a one-on-one aide to a child you’re spending $60-70,000 on that child,” Ray said.
Ray said she’s frustrated that voters don’t understand that if the state fully paid for special education, small districts like Boundary County could reduce their levy asks. But districts can’t tell voters that on the ballot. Special education is a required school district function and can’t be paid for with levy dollars.
Hoping for a levy win but planning for another failure
After November’s bond and levy failures, Bayer shot into planning mode. She met with her leadership team in mid-November to come up with various budget scenarios.
That planning process often starts with what services have to stay, Ray said. That includes English, math, science, social studies and special education.
“You do those five things plus you have to provide transportation and have to turn your lights on,”Ray said. “By the time you pay those bills you’re out of money.”
Administrators hope to have public input for the board of trustees by January. It’s likely they’ll lose 1 1/2 administrator positions, at least 10 teachers and between 10 to 13 classified staff — and that’s just the personnel side of things, Bayer said.
More than 30% of levy funds or $1.5 million pay for staff salaries and benefits.
“I don’t think they understand that’s your electives, that’s your CTE, that’s your coaches,” Bayer said. “And when we do explain it, they say stop threatening us.”
Ray said it’s just explaining the reality.
“It’s like, no, this is what’s going to happen,” Ray said.
Staff pay is a large portion of the district’s budget in general, Ray noted, with 85% going to salaries and benefits.
Budget cuts will affect safety and maintenance, technology, updating curriculum and prevent the purchase of a new school bus. Busing is a massive expense for the district with bus drivers traveling over 700 miles a day.
The biggest cost savings when the district went to a four-day school week was in transportation costs, Bayer said.
By the end of the planning period, Bayer said specific teachers will be told to expect layoffs if a May levy doesn’t pass.
“We need to be fair to our teachers,” Bayer said, noting they need to start looking for other jobs before the May election.
Most school districts make their hires for the next school year ahead of summer break, which starts in June. That lack of time between the May levy results and hiring decisions is frustrating to many school leaders, especially after legislators took away the March and August election dates in recent years.
Ray hopes her fellow trustees will vote to re-run the levy in May. When it comes to Valley View Elementary, Bayer and the board of trustees are still working on creative options without immediately re-running the bond, including soliciting donations and support from local businesses.
