West Bonner talks maintenance priorities

PRIEST RIVER — West Bonner County School District’s facilities committee met with staff and residents Wednesday to examine a draft five-year schedule for facilities maintenance. 

The schedule, created by Operations Director Ryan Carruth, divided the district’s needs into three categories of urgency. The most pressing projects were addressing aging HVAC and piping at Priest River Elementary and fixing leaking roofs at PRE and Priest River Lamanna Jr./Sr. High.

“This is a working document,” Carruth said. “I expect this to be revised multiple times as we go forward.” 

Carruth said he intends to workshop the plan with the facilities committee before presenting it to trustees at their March meeting. Pending board approval, work to repair the roofs will occur this summer. 

The committee also considered strategies for managing the district’s maintenance funds. WBCSD works with a $1.6 million maintenance budget each year, but Carruth said that after considering the cost of salaries and utilities, the remaining amount is much lower. 

“I have a maintenance budget that covers supplies and general fixes,” said Carruth. “That doesn't cover the overwhelming maintenance of the district.” 

Idaho’s House Bill 521 gave public district’s a facilities relief package in 2024; WBCSD received $3.9 million in a lump sum yet to be spent. 

Carruth suggested that the district should consider placing some of the money in a local government investment pool and delaying major maintenance projects for a year to allow interest to accrue. 

“There's a way that we could potentially fund a good percentage of our maintenance operating budget by holding it in an LGIP for a year,” he said. 

Lawmakers indicated that HB 521 funds are designed to support districts for years to come, and that they might not pass another facilities package for a decade. With WBCSD’s many maintenance needs, Carruth emphasized the importance of stretching the money as far as possible. 

“We all know that we will probably spend that well before 10 years,” he said. 

Already, the district is taking steps to save and bring in money wherever possible. The committee announced in the meeting that WBCSD will lease Priest River Junior High’s auditorium to Real Life Newport, a church, for $200 per day of use. 

Carruth said that the church will use its own crews for snow removal and cleaning, and that the agreement will last approximately one year. 

“That's at least some revenue for a year,” Carruth said. “Every little bit helps.” 

He added that Real Life’s use won't conflict with the district’s, and that student organizations and activities will receive preference. 

“Per our policy, our school groups have first priority,” said Carruth. “They know that if there's a need for concert or something in there, that they get bumped.” 

Carruth also said the district is pushing to receive fair compensation from insurers for recent claims including ice damage to Priest Lake Elementary’s roof and a defective boiler at PRE. Local contractors have also contributed to the initiative, which Carruth said has been time consuming. 

“They just delay, delay, delay, until they try to deny you,” Carruth said of insurers. “That's what they do.” 

With the March 31 deadline to submit a ballot question for the May 20 election in sight, WBCSD staff and trustees in attendance discussed their plan to bring a levy to voters that would address the district’s needs. 

“If we had all the money in the world, everything would get fixed ASAP, but we don't. We do the best we can with what we have,” trustee Paul Turco said. “We're trying to squeeze water from a rock as far as funding goes.” 

District voters have denied levies the last three times they have been presented. If WBCSD doesn’t secure levy funds in May, Turco said, there is a serious possibility that Priest Lake and Idaho Hill elementaries will be closed for the 2025-2026 academic year. 

With classes consolidated to two Priest River buildings, WBCSD would likely lose students from the outlying communities, which would in turn cost the district dollars in Idaho’s average daily attendance funding model. 

“If we go lower, they're going to take more funding away,” Turco said. “We're going to continue to shrink and shrink and shrink, and it becomes a slippery slope.”