School trustees shoot down election change

COEUR d'ALENE — School trustees in Coeur d'Alene said “hell no” Monday to a compromise on Sen. Mary Souza's legislation proposing trustee elections be moved to a partisan election cycle.

In a special meeting, the board reopened discussion on a proposed resolution calling for the state to move trustee elections from May to November of odd-numbered years, rather than even-numbered years as Souza proposed in the Senate last session.

Tom Hearn, vice-chair of the board and author of the resolution, added a line since the last meeting that stated school boards prefer the status quo, per the trustees' request. After about 30 minutes of discussion, the board voted to oppose the resolution.

School board elections are historically nonpartisan, and the trustees believe they should remain so. However, Souza said she's less concerned with partisanship, and more concerned with getting people to vote. Souza offered Kootenai County's 5.7 percent voter turnout this past election as evidence that something has to change, and since North Idaho College held its nonpartisan trustee elections in a partisan election cycle, it seemed like a safe bet.

The trustees worried Souza's intentions were more politically motivated than she admitted. Scheduling trustee elections in a partisan cycle would likely bring more people to the polls, primarily Republicans, since the majority of voters in the county are Republicans.

However, the trustees couldn't find a compromise that would benefit both them and the legislator. Casey Morrisroe, chair of the board, said he opposed the resolution because it brought so much controversy, and he didn't think the system was the issue anyway.

“I would rather have a more-unified voice, and we're never going to have that because I think there are some districts who support this, but that we should say not just ‘no,' but ‘hell no.' We shouldn't be doing this. It's not the system that's broken; it's voter apathy,” Morrisroe said.

Souza said she wouldn't live with the compromise either. Most of Idaho is rural, she said, and those who live outside city limits in the state's counties rarely pay attention to or participate in odd-year elections when city council races are decided.

“We would be disenfranchising those rural districts by having elections in odd-numbered years,” Souza said.

Efforts to politicize school boards weren't the trustees' only concerns. Dave Eubanks, board member, took issue with electing new management after beginning the new school year.

“This does not fix anything. This causes more problems than it solves in terms of managing the district,” Eubanks said. “To me, the management of the district has to be a stabilizing influence over the district and the community. When you try bringing new people into the management in the middle of the year — especially if they're people who have very different ideas — I think it could be very destabilizing.”

Another question is — does this make trustee candidates pay-to-play? Morrisroe said he spoke with a trustee in the Spokane school district up for re-election in November who had to raise $20,000 to compete with mayoral and city council elections.

“All of a sudden people in Coeur d'Alene are going to need to pay $15, $20,000 to run for one of these positions. It's already hard enough to get people to run; the last — now — four elections have been unopposed in this community,” Morrisroe said. “If we went to November and we had that kind of pricing pressure, you're just making it harder to get candidates to run.”

Souza felt the trustees should be more concerned with what's best for voters rather than candidates.

It's no secret that school board elections are not the only ones neglected by voters. The county also holds elections for commissioners for fire, soil, water, sewer, hospital and highway districts in May of odd-numbered years, so why not change them too, the board wondered.

“I have a hard time reconciling what the intent is, which, if it's to increase voter turnout, then why are we turning a blind eye to all those other things?” Morrisroe asked.

Souza said she would support legislation to move those elections as well, but they were recently consolidated in 2009 after a few years of debate and she didn't feel the need to re-open that can of worms. Plus, she noted the important role schools play in shaping Idaho's future, which she felt was paramount to other issues.

Souza brought the bill to the Senate for the third time last session, where it made it onto the floor and out of committee for the first time. The Idaho School Board Association notified Hearn about how far the bill got and how Souza intends to bring similar legislation back next session, which she confirmed with The Press. The ISBA suggested Hearn draft a resolution to address it and if it passed this board, it would be submitted to the ISBA executive board to consider bringing to their convention in November in Coeur d'Alene.