Matthee has real solutions for schools

By now, many of us realize that Gov. Brad Little’s $1.5 billion school facilities bill will not resolve the problem of aging school facilities in our rural school districts. Because it allocates funds based on attendance, it favors larger urban school districts. It’s estimated that Lake Pend Oreille School District will receive about $14 million, while the Boise Independent School District will receive $40 million. However, a new elementary school costs about $30 million. And this is all they get, either now or over a 10-year timeframe.

So our rural districts will still need to ask voters to help fix or replace crumbling infrastructure. Karen Matthee is a candidate who cares deeply about public schools and the need to protect them from ongoing attacks by the far right.

She supports long-term solutions for our schools, including ones laid out in HB 755, introduced too late in the session to go forward. It creates a fund in the state treasury to support public school facilities, along with a needs-based funding process that could do away with local school bonds and give every student the learning environment they deserve. The Idaho Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the state — not local property owners — had the responsibility to adequately fund schools.

Vote for Karen Matthee for House Seat 1A in November, and she’ll work hard to make that happen.

LEONA CHRISTENSEN

Sandpoint