Don't be penny wise, pound foolish with levy

Some think we can't afford the Lake Pend Oreille School District levy. I think we can't afford to turn it down.

First, the school district is primarily funded from two sources - the state of Idaho (80 percent) and the property taxpayers of our district (20 percent).

Second, the supplemental levies, used to fund school operations, apply for two years and then drop from our tax bill unless replaced by a new levy. So rather than adding significantly to our tax burden, each subsequent levy replaces the one before. For example, on my property tax bill for the current year there is about $300 for the school supplemental levy. If the new levy fails, my property tax will go down by that amount. If it passes my tax won't be affected. As a matter of fact, the current levy proposal is structured so that my tax bill for school operations will not increase in the 2009-2010 fiscal year even though the total levy is a 22-percent increase over the prior one.

There is another factor that will impact school funding. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter announced this week, in his State of the State message, a proposal to cut school funding by more than 5 percent. That amounts to about $1,150,000. If the levy doesn't pass and the schools are also hit with the state cut we are looking at a catastrophic reduction in spending on local K-12 education of 25 percent. If you think our schools are bad now (which I don't), just you wait.

There is another facet of the levy proposal that you should be aware of. In allocating the funds over the two-year levy period, rather than split them equally between the two years, about 40 percent will apply the first year and 60 percent the second. The reason for this is that the facilities levy that we passed less than a year ago will be paid off during the first year of the new supplemental levy. On my tax bill that's about $450. That $450 will be gone in the second year of the new levy so most of us will see no increase in our school tax that year either. For that clever idea we owe thanks to the school board Chairwoman Vicki Pfeifer.

So, we have a choice: vote yes on the levy and see our school taxes stay at the current level or vote no, get a modest tax reduction over the next two years, and cut our school budget by 25 percent..

Individually we are talking about relatively small change. Collectively we are talking about a tsunami slamming our kids' future.

BOB WYNHAUSEN

Sandpoint