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In LPOSD’s supplemental levy information I noticed the following: “This is not a permanent levy. Our school board decided against asking voters for a permanent levy. This is a two-year levy.”

That sounds quite virtuous and fiscally responsible — we are actually being protected from a permanent levy.

Until you realize that a permanent levy is the last thing LPOSD wants, and school board chair Steve Youngdahl has actually stated that. Because a permanent levy can no longer be raised; they will be bound by the same amount. Of course they do not want that.

Their track record has been to consistently raise supplemental levies, sometimes by wild percentages, right up to 39.3 percent. This latest levy is “only” 7.8 percent more than the last two-year levy, but that’s 7.8 percent on top of all these previous levies. Those of us on a fixed income, and especially the elderly, have been struggling for years to keep up with these ever-higher school taxes.

Yes, we all support the students. But does that mean we have to pay six-figure administrator salaries with bonuses while the band’s music instruments are “literally being held together with duct tape,” as one teacher put it during a school board meeting? Do we need Wi-Fi on school buses while school books are falling apart? Do we need 110 coaches in a district of our size, who now also collect “longevity” pay? All of this comes out of this expensive levy.

Please demand fiscal responsibility from LPOSD and vote no on this levy.

JOY SINCLAIR

Sandpoint