Boundary County schools seek levy to prevent cuts

A supplemental levy to finance school maintenance and some salaries, seen as “a defining moment in education in Boundary County,” is on the ballot for the second time this spring.

The highlight of Tuesday’s school elections in North Idaho is Boundary County’s second try to get voter approval of a $985,000 maintenance and operations levy that stands between an already spartan budget and a wave of deep cuts, Superintendent Don Bartling has said.

Elsewhere, the five-member school board in the Lake Pend Oreille School District will be redefined with four new faces Tuesday, and the north end of the Lakeland School District could have a new face for the first time in a quarter-century if a challenger unseats Joy Porter for the trustee seat representing the Spirit Lake and Upper Twin Lakes area.

In Boundary County, the levy would help finance a second counselor at the 500-student high school, add counseling and clerical help at the junior high and help pay a teacher for a gifted and talented program.

The levy also would cover anticipated utility increases and pay for maintenance of the district’s computers.

Run originally as a two-year levy during the March elections, the levy received only 46 percent of the vote and failed.

The school board decided in April to trim one year off the levy and run it again before it has to finalize next year’s budget.

Passage of the levy is expected to bring a $30 increase in taxes for property with an assessed value of $100,000.

“This is reality. This is where we are at with our budget and educational programs in Boundary County,” Bartling said last month.

If the levy fails, administrators have proposed closing outlying elementary schools and busing all students to Bonners Ferry.

This would result in double-shifting at the junior high until the new high school opens in early 2005.

In previous interviews, Bartling has said the Boundary County schools budget is already below bare-bones.

The junior high no longer has a shop program, he noted, and the district has no home-economics class — now known as family and consumer science — Bartling said.

Those programs are not part of the levy proposal.

Polls in the Boundary County school levy election are open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Votes may be cast at Naples Elementary in Naples, Evergreen Elementary in Moyie Springs, Mount Hall Elementary near the Canadian border and the three schools in Bonners Ferry — Valley View Elementary, Boundary County Junior High and Bonners Ferry High School.

Trustee races

There are several contested school board races in North Idaho districts, the hottest in the typically stormy Lake Pend Oreille School District where, originally, eight people filed for trustee elections this spring.

The candidate pool is down to five.

Zone 1, which includes eastern Bonner County towns of Hope and Clark Fork — an area that has tried to secede and form its own school district — has two candidates: Melanie Snider and Lois MacLeod

Lynette Rands and Joan Fish, the candidates in Zone 3, the area west of U.S. Highway 95, boast conflict-resolution skills they say could be useful for a district recently hit with management changes, investigated for alleged Title IX violations and told by the state it can’t split off its eastern half.

The recent withdrawal of a candidate in Zone 4, south of Highway 200, hands the seat to Mindy Cameron, now unopposed.

There will be no votes cast in this race, district officials said.

The fourth new face on the board will be Steve Lockwood, appointed this week to replace Larry Baggett, who recently resigned his spot in Zone 5, which includes Sandpoint.

Polls in the Lake Pend Orielle district are open from noon to 8 p.m. In Zone 1, votes may be cast at Hope Elementary, Clark Fork Junior/Senior High and Northside Elementary in Sandpoint.

In Zone 3, voters should go to Farmin-Stidwell Elementary in Sandpoint.

In other North Idaho contested races, challenger Kyle Olmsteadwas in grade school when Joy Porter was first elected to the Lakeland School Board.

Voters may cast ballots in the possibly pivotal race at Spirit Lake Elementary School from noon to 8 p.m.

The Wallace School District has one contested race.

Incumbent Beulah Hirte in Zone 5 is being challenged by Matt Beehner for a three-year term.

In the neighboring Kellogg School District, Richard Selman and Thad Samuelsen are vying for a three-year term in Zone 3.

West Bonner School District’s Zone 1 is up for grabs.

Incumbent Galen Miller and Craig Turner want to represent the area for a three-year term.