School board gets levy proposal
Coeur d’Alene School District may be seeking a $32 million two-year levy this spring, including about $20 million to build a new Lakes Middle School.
School board trustees were presented the levy recommendation at their meeting Monday evening. They took no action on the long-range planning committee’s proposal, but may decide at their next meeting to put that levy or a modified levy to a public vote.
Other items recommended for inclusion in the levy were money for a new elementary school, replacing and improving school technology and buying property for future schools, said Doug Jaworski, chairman of the long-range planning committee.
“It’s a fine line between what you need and what you want and what will fly with the taxpayers,” Jaworski said of the proposal. “The needs are great. We could use four times that amount, but it’s not realistic to get that.”
A $40 million levy failed in 2006. It would have provided money to build a new Lakes Middle School, replace Winton Elementary, build a new elementary school and renovate Borah Elementary, said district Public Information Specialist Janet Feiler. Money would have also been available for school technology.
At the time, some said it failed because the project list was too long and the district was asking for too much money.
“The last levy we had – we learned quite a bit when it failed. That really stung,” Jaworski said.
The current levy recommendation identifies only the top needs, he explained.
Lakes Middle School, at 930 N. 15th St., was built in 1952 as a high school and now houses about 670 students, grades 6 through 8, said Feiler. The school district has already spent $800,000 on designs and other engineering work to build a new school on the site, Jaworski added.
“That’s been on the radar screen since 2002 as a top priority,” said School Board Trustee Sid Fredrickson of the Lakes Middle School project.
There is some money already available for Lakes Middle School – $4.5 million from a 2002 levy – but more is needed to construct a new building. The 2002 levy was intended to be enough to build the middle school, but rising construction costs increased the price of other projects, leaving a funding gap for Lakes.
As for the other recommendations, Jaworski said that keeping up with technology is essential if the children in the school are to be prepared when they graduate. “To me that’s a given.”
Jaworski said time is of the essence when it comes to buying land. A high school needs about 40 acres, a middle school 20 acres and an elementary school 10 acres he explained. “If we wait I’m fearful there just won’t be those kinds of parcels because everything is being gobbled up.”.
Jaworski said he hopes the district’s board of trustees will decide on a levy soon so that he and others can start the process of educating voters about it.
“Now it’s up to the board to decide what makes sense,” he said.