School Heat System Just Not Doing Job Supplemental Levy Would Provide Funds For Replacement

In summer, everywhere you look inside the Post Falls High School, fans are blowing while students and staff sweat.

In winter, it’s like air conditioning is running while snow falls outside.

The old heating system at the high school just doesn’t work, the school district says. It’s asking voters to replace that system as part of a supplemental levy election March 23.

“Our maintenance people and the district office have really done an admirable job in trying to keep things working,” said Post Falls High School Principal John Billetz. “We’ve just got so many add-ons.”

“This heating system is going to pieces in a hurry,” said Sid Armstrong, business manager for the school district. “We just don’t feel like we can wait any longer.

“We’re using 1960s technology. We’re talking about a building that’s been added onto six different times.”

The two-year supplemental levy would raise $700,000 per year for new textbooks, facility maintenance projects, replacing old school buses and replacing the high school heating system.

The levy, if passed by the needed simple majority, would add $1.10 per month onto the tax bill of a $100,000 home, according to the district.

The heating system will cost a total of $1 million to replace. That means the district will need to pass two more levies in the future to pay for the fix, but Armstrong said he doesn’t foresee a problem, noting that two years ago, voters approved a supplemental levy by 73 percent.

“The beauty of this as we see it is we can borrow the money and get that taken care of this summer,” he said.

A state audit of the district in 1993 recommended that the district start regularly replacing buses that were 12 years old or older, he said.

“We’re getting really close to that right now,” Armstrong said, adding that if the levy passes, all the buses in the district will be 1990 models or newer.

Textbooks are replaced on seven-year cycles, so the levy allows the district to continue in its replacement program to keep the books current, Armstrong said.

Replacing the heating system was included in the second part of a two-part bond election last year to build a new high school. The first part of the bond, which was to build the new high school, passed with exactly the two-thirds majority required. The second part, while gaining favor with more than 60 percent of the voters, failed to attain the 66-2/3 percent needed to pass.

“It’s been a real struggle here, trying to keep the furnaces running and trying to keep a balance between hot and cold,” Billetz said. Particularly in the summer, “it gets extremely, extremely hot in our labs. You know, computers generate so much heat.”