Levy results create confusion

COEUR d'ALENE - Dick DeGroot told Coeur d'Alene School District trustees Thursday that he is "elated" that both parts of Tuesday's $12.9 million supplemental levy were successfully passed by voters.

"But I'm just terribly confused by this," DeGroot said.

The Coeur d'Alene resident was referring to the ballot now at the center of a dispute between school officials and the Kootenai County Elections Office.

DeGroot addressed the five school trustees and Superintendent Hazel Bauman at an emergency board meeting during which Bauman recommended that the school board ask the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners to step in.

Bauman asked that trustees consider an official motion "requesting the county commissioners to consider changing the tabulation and bring the results into compliance with our intentions from the start."

The trustees unanimously agreed.

The decision came a day after Kootenai County Clerk Cliff Hayes told school officials that his office would not change the election tally.

"I stand by my decision," Hayes told The Press on Wednesday.

Voters were instructed on the ballot, which was prepared by the school district, to "stop here" if they voted no on Option 1, a $7.8 million levy. If they voted yes on Option 1, voters were asked to "please vote" on Option 2, an additional $5 million levy.

The ballot was reviewed by an attorney for the county, and the school district's legal counsel, and passed muster by both.

Although each of the levy options passed with more than 50 percent of the vote, Bauman said the elections office's results do not align with the district's intent that a no vote on Option 1 would be counted "by default" as a no vote on Option 2.

Kootenai County Chief Deputy Clerk Pat Raffee said elections office workers would have to be "mind readers" to have known that was what the school district expected.

Former legislator Jim Clark addressed the board at Thursday's emergency meeting.

Clark, of Hayden Lake, said he too found the ballot language "somewhat confusing," and said he has heard from others who feel the same.

Some voters who contacted Clark were concerned that their ballots may not have been counted because they voted on Option 2 after voting no on Option 1.

Bauman said she did not know how the elections office handled those ballots.

Raffee told The Press that all no votes on Option 1 were counted, even if a voter didn't heed the ballot instructions and voted on Option 2. The Option 2 votes on those ballots, whether they were yes or no, were disregarded, Raffee said.

The county elections office has heard some complaints about the ballot, and they have deferred them to the school district.

"We did not write the ballot language. The complaints we have received are regarding the ballot language, so yes, we directed them to the school district," Raffee said.

The elections office is reporting that the first option passed with 64 percent, and the second option passed at 86 percent.

The school district wants the dissenting votes on the first option to be counted again as no votes on the second option, reducing the percentage of successful passage on the second option to 55 percent.

The "voices of all voters" should be heard on both options, Bauman said. There were a total of 10,672 votes counted on Option 1.

"The way the county is doing it right now, they are cutting out 3,000 voters out of the Option 2 tally, and we think that is untenable," Bauman said.

The district split the $12.9 million levy into two parts, Bauman said, because it gave voters who wanted to support the schools, but cannot afford a tax increase, the opportunity to do so by approving just the first option. The first $7.8 million levy option will replace an expiring levy approved by voters in 2009, and is not expected to result in a tax increase.

The second $5 million option will increase taxes by $68 per year for the owner of a $200,000 home.

School officials expected a lower percentage of yes votes on the option that meant an additional tax.

"That's just conventional wisdom. That is why a no vote on Option 1 had to translate into a no vote on Option 2, or else we would get the exact results that the county has given us which is a complete inverse of that logic," Bauman said.

When he addressed the board, DeGroot compared the multi-option levy ballot to federal income tax forms that "don't work" when people lose their concentration and try to fill in sections they're not supposed to.

He told the trustees that he supports their efforts to have the no votes on Option 1 counted as no votes on Option 2.

"Going forward, to avoid this situation again, it might be wise to somehow clarify on the ballot that no on one is also no on two," DeGroot said.

Board chair Edie Brooks said, "I think we actually realize that now, and that was our intention."