Lake Pend Oreille, Wallace levies pass

Several schools in North Idaho will avoid budget cuts after voters approved supplemental levies meant to keep the districts running for another year.

Voters approved an $8.9 million levy in the Lake Pend Oreille School District by a vote of 3,651-2,049, said superintendent Dick Cvitanich.

“We’re elated,” he said Tuesday night. “It allows us to maintain the programs we’ve had in place and grow in some other ways.”

The district plans to add more instruction for kindergartners learning to read, as well as new kitchen equipment, buses, technology and curricula.

The money will go to schools in towns in the Lake Pend Oreille district, including Sagle, Cocolalla, Clark Fork, Hope, Ponderay, Kootenai and Sandpoint.

In the Wallace School District, voters approved the $1.4 million levy 376-286, with 56.8 percent in favor.

Wallace asks its voters each year to provide the funds needed to buy textbooks and to give teachers the raises that the state Legislature is expected to approve this year.

“This means that we can continue the educational system that our staff has promoted,” said Wallace school board Chairwoman Garda Cuthbert.

“I think it passed because our community is very supportive of our educational system.”

District officials had said they were especially hopeful the levy would pass because federal monies gleaned from timber sales on public lands may not be available next year.

Officials in both districts said they weren’t certain what would have been cut if the levies had failed, but since salaries are a significant part of budgets, it was likely that positions would have been lost.