Voters should approve a $59.8 million plant facilities levy proposed by the Blaine County School District that will be decided in a special election Thursday, Oct. 29.
The levy is a grab bag of school construction, maintenance, additions and improvements at existing schools, and new technology for classrooms.
The levy would not increase property taxes because it is essentially a renewal of existing levies due to expire.
The yearly estimated $167 it would continue to cost the average local homeowner is reasonable. Voters would be foolish to reject the benefits of injecting money into the local economy and providing local kids with topnotch education.
Why continue to pay?
Without the levy, the district would "go back to the future." It would have to shift money away from existing programs and classroom instruction whenever it needs to replace a furnace, patch a roof, build a new cafeteria, add on a few classrooms or buy new computers. Students and teachers would go without state-of-the-art technology, and classrooms would be overcrowded. Real education would suffer.
What a shame if Wood River High School graduates couldn't compete in the larger world because key classes were cancelled when the district had to fix holes in a roof.
Struggling local workers who think it would be wiser to keep the $3.21 a week the levy would cost for an average home should think again.
The levy will benefit the local economy at a critical time, and owners of vacation homes will pay the majority of it at far higher rates because local homeowners are partially exempt from property taxes. If the levy expires, the money paid by out-of-area owners will stay with them—far away from the local economy.
The levy would infuse an average of $6 million annually into the local economy. It would create jobs in building trades and supply businesses—two groups severely injured by the housing crash.
Although the district cannot calculate the number of jobs the levy would create, the number would be substantial.
The economic multiplier effect would ensure that those paychecks would ripple through local businesses and help provide life preservers for workers and businesses until the economy improves.
To vote in favor of the levy is to vote in favor of local jobs, a healthy economy and high-quality education for local kids.
The levy is a winner from every angle.
