Boundary levy vote Tuesday

BONNERS FERRY – There’s no librarian at Boundary County Middle School or the county’s four elementary schools. The district moved to a four-day school week last fall. There are no foreign language classes at the middle school, minimal elective offerings at the high school and few additional programs in any of the schools.

And the district isn’t looking to change any of that with the $1.7 million, two-year supplemental levy up for a vote Tuesday. With past levies taking multiple tries and a lot of restructuring to pass, school officials say they’ve cut the district budget down to the bare minimum and have decided exactly what will go away if the levy fails.

“There’s nothing extravagant in our budget,” Superintendent Don Bartling said. “It’s just basic educational programs.”

So when someone asks Bartling what will be cut if the levy fails, he can hand them a list. Extracurricular activities totaling $258,727 a year are at the top. Next are principal positions at Naples, Evergreen and Mt. Hall elementary schools, teachers for drama and the gifted and talented program, a fifth-grade teacher, a technology maintenance position and a part-time high school vice principal.

The rest of the levy would cover inflationary costs, new staff positions, technology maintenance, textbook replacement and a new school bus.

“The board’s attempt is to make the (levy) just as basic and frugal and bare bones as possible,” Bartling said.

The contentious climate in the county surrounding school tax levies reached a boiling point in 2004, when a supplemental levy touted as critical to the district failed, then passed on the second try by just 12 votes. A vocal, well-organized group of opponents asked the police to investigate fraudulent vote counting by school district officials. Police found no wrongdoing.

In 2005, education advocates in the county persuaded the board to go back to voters again with a levy proposal that had been turned down, despite the district’s earlier assurance that it would not seek a second vote.

Things are better now, Bartling said. Opposition is there but doesn’t seem as organized or as large. “There’s nobody making a lot of noise,” he said.

Bartling points to the support this year’s levy proposal has from one of the most vocal critics of past levies, Robert Del Grosso, as a sign that trust is building between the district and voters.

“I had opposed levies in the past because the amounts are too high,” said Del Grosso, an author and publisher in Bonners Ferry. “The big change is that the price was right, and I felt that the community could financially support this levy.”

For every $1,000 of taxable property value, the levy will cost $1.21, an increase from the current rate of $1.09.

“My theme is if you support the Badgers (the high school sports teams), you support the levy,” Del Grosso continued. “If the levy fails, your sports programs go down the tubes.”

But the Boundary County Property Owners Association opposes the levy, said member Steve Tanner, an anti-tax and limited-government advocate who said he would oppose any tax levy request a school district presents voters, regardless of what it costs or what it’s for.

“If the property owners are paying for it exclusively, let’s just have the property owners vote,” said Tanner, who spoke on radio last week encouraging others to vote down the levy.

Tanner said teachers already make too much money.

“If it’s really for the kids, take a 10 percent pay cut,” he said. By Tanner’s estimates, that would cover the amount of the proposed levy.

He sees the district as untrustworthy because of incidents such as the decision to put the levy before voters twice in 2005, and he questions school officials’ claims that sports will go away if the levy isn’t approved.

“The school district always does this: They want to put forward things to eliminate that people like so people will vote for it,” Tanner said.

But with coaches’ salaries, team travel costs and supplies and equipment all funded through the levy, Bartling said there’s no way sports programs would stick around if the levy failed.

The district refutes every point Tanner makes, but the war of words means not every voter will hear every argument. “Through a meeting and a few phone calls, he can generate, I’d say, at least 500 ‘no’ votes,” Bartling said.

District Curriculum Director Brenda Walter said she’s concerned about misinformation voters may have about money requested for textbook replacement. The levy request includes $108,000 each year for new textbooks.

The state education budget, which hasn’t been approved by either legislative chamber or signed by the governor, includes $9 million for textbook replacement, to be allocated among the state’s 114 school districts. It calls for the state to give $3 for every $1 a district spends on textbooks, but the proposal figures that book costs should total $50 for each secondary-grade student and $25 for each primary-grade student. Actual textbook costs are higher, Walter said.

Exactly how the money will be allocated hasn’t been decided yet, said Melissa McGrath, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. There’s no guarantee how much money the district will get, but Walter estimates it will be in the $40,000 range, nowhere near the $300,000 some have said the district will get.

The district updated its math textbooks using money from the 2005 levy. New science texts are next in line, Walter said.

If the levy is approved, the district plans to update its science textbooks by buying a new set of books and other instructional materials for all grade levels from one publisher. The district has physics books dating back to 1995, and most other science classes have books from different publishers.

“We would like to have a more cohesive program, like we’ve been able to do with math,” Walter said.

Past budget cuts have drained the district’s textbook money fund, and the district is far behind the state schedule for textbook replacement, Walter said. Health and vocational-education books date back to the early 1980s; all but seventh- and eighth-grade English books are from 1995. Health and vocational textbooks would be upgraded using the levy money.

The personnel portion of the levy includes another part-time secretary at the middle school and money to move the custodian position at the middle school from part-time to full-time. It also would add another period of gym class at the high school.

One big difference from past levies is that the future of the district’s most rural schools is no longer on the table. If the levy fails, the schools will remain open, but with lead teachers running them instead of principals.

Bartling plans to keep proposing the levy, amount unchanged, as many times as necessary.

“I will not let our kids suffer because our levy failed,” he said. “I’ll keep running it until it passes. … Our kids should have the right to expect activities.”

Said Walter, “What can we cut when there’s nothing left to cut?”