Excellent schools are vital to the future of our kids. Who will compete in a world where 21st-century skills are their key to success?
We dream of diversifying our economy with high-value-added businesses. People who drive such businesses demand outstanding schools for their kids. Otherwise, they will locate elsewhere. The school district has a strategic plan to give us the schools we need for our kids and for our economic future. To succeed, that plan requires that we concentrate our resources on raising the quality of our teaching and programs. The main purpose of the facilities levy is to maximize funds available for that effort.
How can facilities money maximize teaching? Idaho law imposes rigid constraints on the level of school funding available for "operations"—a category that is mainly instructional expense, but includes everything else if it's the only money available. We cannot increase those funds directly. We can, however, shift some expenses out of the operating budget and pay them from a different budget—the facilities levy, provided we pass that levy.
Levy expenses include critical maintenance and replacement of tired facilities, technology essential to a 21st-century teaching endeavor and upgraded security equipment. Without the levy, these items will consume over $3.5 million of the funds we need for teaching each year.
Can we afford the levy? The average resident (who owns a home assessed at $420,000) will pay $160 per year, or 44 cents per day. Resident homeowners will contribute only a quarter of what the levy will raise. The rest will come from second homes, commercial, industrial and agricultural property. Thank Earl Holding. Thank California. Thank Seattle. Even in difficult times, how can we afford to refuse such an offer?
The levy will not fund a building spree; it will fund educational excellence.
Lyman Drake
Ketchum
