Ken Fox lives in Hailey.
By KEN FOX
Ten years ago, the Blaine County School District approached the voters of this county with an appeal for a special levy to build new schools and related infrastructure. We were told at the time that this was a one-time request, necessary because certain facilities had become dated and needed to be replaced.
We are now at the end of the 10-year period and the school district has come back to the taxpayers again, trying to renew this levy for 10 additional years. When the school district announced its intentions to seek renewal a few months ago, they hadn't even decided on what they wanted the money for, just that they wanted to continue receiving these funds. They claim that no one's taxes will be increased, although of course, everyone's property taxes will go down if the levy is not renewed.
These are hard economic times, and few people in this valley don't know individuals who have lost their employment or had their incomes severely reduced. Many people have left the valley as a result. Now is not the time for questionable expenditures on a school infrastructure that has already benefited from about $60 million extra that we, the taxpayers, put in during the last 10 years. This was in addition to the regular school funding that districts across the state receive. The hardest thing for any governmental entity to do is to turn off the spigot of easy extra cash. It would certainly have been admirable if the school district had shown some restraint and taken this approach, but it did not.
Citizens should be alarmed at the way that this levy election is being conducted. The "vote" is to occur during slack, at a time in late October when many residents who don't have children will be out of town. In addition, the "election" is not a regular election held at regular polling places, but rather in the schools themselves, where (just by coincidence) parents will be dropping off their children to go to school, and few other citizens will bother to go. This ensures that almost all the voters will be the parents of current schoolchildren, who are then given the ability to vote in their own interest, raising the taxes of all homeowners in the valley in the process.
I urge you to take the time to vote no on this levy request, either in person on Oct. 29, or to contact the school district for an absentee ballot. If and when there are real and unfunded needs that can be substantiated, then the school district can come back to the taxpayers again. Simply continuing this levy at this time will ensure that it becomes a permanent tax, increasing the cost of living for all the citizens of this valley, and making living here even less affordable in the future.
