Ballot OK'd for $25M LPOSD levy

SANDPOINT — The Lake Pend Oreille School District’s proposed $25 million operations and maintenance supplemental levy will head to voters in March.

LPOSD board members approved ballot language for the levy on Tuesday. The proposed levy will replace the current two-year, $17 million supplemental levy, which expires June 30.

“It’s called a supplemental levy, but it’s become an essential levy,” LPOSD board member Gary Suppiger said. “Our district, and every other district in the state, would just be a shadow of what they are without these funds.”

The supplemental levy funds approximately 30 percent of the district’s budget, with the funds primarily distributed among technology, student activities, curriculum, maintenance and staffing.

Staffing saw the largest increase in the proposed levy, as personnel accounts for roughly 84 percent of the district’s budget, Woodward said. The proposed amount over the next two years for staffing is $20,979,862. This will not only fund staff members’ current salaries, but also allow for salary increases across the board, to help keep the district competitive in the North Idaho region, LPOSD Superintendent Shawn Woodward said during previous meetings leading up to the ballot approval. He said 92 percent of proposed salary increases are non-administrative, and do not include himself or the district’s chief financial and operations officer Lisa Hals.

The increased levy amount for staffing would also allow the district to hire additional staff due to enrollment increases, hire a second school resource officer, maintain elementary counseling support, and increase non-tuition based full-day kindergarten, Woodward said.

Before approving the ballot language on Tuesday, each board member, in turn, said they support the levy, primarily because the majority of the funds go to support teachers.

“Most people are on the same page that teachers are underpaid, and this is a big part of what this levy is,” said board member Lonnie Williams. “More than that, our state is tasked with funding basic education. What we do as a district is not basic education — it is far beyond that. We go so far beyond with all the extra classes and extra programs that we provide, our youth have phenomenal opportunities ... We want to prepare our youth for the next step, and I think that if we don’t support these kind of things, then all of the opportunity that we have worked really hard for as a community over the years will go away.”

Geraldine Lewis, vice chair of the board, said from what she has heard in the community, there is a “high level of community support” for the levy.

“I’m encouraged that our voters understand what’s at stake,” she said.

The ballot will go before voters on March 12.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.