LPOSD: Levy loss would end all activities

SANDPOINT — Lake Pend Oreille School District faces severe staffing and extracurricular cuts this fall if voters do not approve a $10.9 million levy later this month, according to district officials.

LPOSD officials would have to reduce 100 staff members from its payroll, eliminate all academic and extracurricular activities such as band, choir, math club, high school and middle school sports, plus eliminate all student access to computers except for state required testing and curriculum purchases.

In fact, the Sandpoint Soccer Association is encouraging residents to attend a meeting set for Sandpoint High School today, warning in an e-mail that failure of the levy will mean the elimination of all extracurricular activities.

“If the levy fails, all athletic programs will be eliminated,” said John Rinck. “The SSA board of directors feels the elimination of athletic programs will have a negative impact on our organization.”

Failure of the levy will necessitate cutting $4.450,000 from the 2009-’10 budget or a 20 percent reduction in operational funding, writes Supt. Dick Cvitanich in a letter posted on the district’s Web site.

This comes on the heels of the district’s board of trustees cutting 67 positions from its payroll during the past two years related to decreased student enrollment.

District officials also are warning citizens that even if the levy passes, it still will have to make $1,262,000 in cuts spread out during the next two years.

Those reductions include cutting two teaching positions at Sandpoint High School, reducing three teachers from the elementary school upper quartile program, eliminating non-reimbursable field trips, dropping the elementary school counseling program, reduction of some extra curricular activities, reducing central office administrative and clerical staff, eliminating the second year of class size overcrowding support, reducing the number of computers that will be upgraded as part of a refresh program and modifying an extended day kindergarten program.

Officials cite a dismal state economy, a school funding formula that has not been revamped in 15 years and continued declining enrollment as the reason for the supplemental levy.

The levy would cost $4.6 million the first year and $6.35 million the second year. Trustees voted on the lopsided numbers to take into account plant facility funding which will be assessed during the first year of the supplemental levy only.

Taxpayers who want to figure out how much the levy will cost them can go to the district’s Website, www.lposd.org, then click on the 2009 supplemental levy information link (located above the superintendent’s message) and then click on the projected cost per incremental valuation table for taxpayers.

When you figure out how much you will pay in taxes, do not forget to deduct your homeowner’s exemption.