As legislators descend on Coeur d'Alene, school district leaders appeal for longer levy terms

COEUR d’ALENE — Some of North Idaho’s K-12 education leaders implored lawmakers to consider changing the terms of supplemental levies, allowing voters to approve terms longer than two years.

Coeur d’Alene School District Superintendent Shon Hocker and Post Falls Superintendent Dena Naccarato appealed to legislators Monday afternoon in the Schuler Performing Arts Center on the North Idaho College campus. Their presentation was part of the 2024 Idaho Legislative Tour, which has brought lawmakers to Coeur d’Alene this week.

Existing law allows for supplemental levy terms of two years or in perpetuity. The Coeur d’Alene School District’s two-year, $25 million-per-year levy passed easily last week, with 61% of voters casting their ballots in favor.

“You can imagine that, every couple of years, it’s very challenging for our employees and our students to wonder whether there’s going to be funding for their positions and their opportunities,” Hocker told the assembled legislators.

Last March, voters rejected a perpetual supplemental levy by a margin of just 361 votes. When the levy went before voters again two months later, this time under a two-year term, it passed with 63% of the vote.

The supplemental levy funds about 25% of the Coeur d’Alene School District’s operations, Hocker said, making it essential. Without those funds, Hocker said the district would need to let go of about 325 employees and close four of the district’s 16 schools.

In the eight weeks between levy elections last year, Hocker said the district received important feedback from the community — that voters had grown weary of voting on levies every two years but were hesitant to commit to a “forever” levy.

“Two years is too frequent, but perpetuity is too long,” Hocker said. “Is there not an option in the middle?”

Hocker and Naccarato asked lawmakers to consider levy terms up to six years. They said longer levy terms would increase stability for district staff, students and taxpayers while giving voters the middle-ground option that community members said they prefer.

“Our voters have fatigue,” Naccarato said. “It does feel to our taxpayers that we are constantly asking for a handout.”

The superintendents also urged legislators not to open the “Pandora’s box” of using public dollars to subsidize private education, whether in the form of vouchers or educational savings accounts that let parents receive a portion of their child’s public school funding when they opt out of public schools. The matter promises to be a hot topic during the next legislative session.

Hocker said he’s concerned that such programs would reduce funding for public schools and that the funding wouldn’t be used in a transparent way.

“I think any use of taxpayer dollars, in any form, has to be transparent and accountable,” he said. “We pride ourselves in our school district on transparency in everything we do. I think Idaho believes that.”

Naccarato described two students, aged 9 and 13, who had not attended any public school before enrolling in the Post Falls School District. Neither child could read nor write. The younger child did not know the alphabet.

“These two stories should illustrate why it’s important that we do have some accountability,” Naccarato said. “If we’re going to send taxpayer dollars, then those students who are being homeschooled or schooled in a different educational setting need to take the same tests, should be held to the same reporting standards, should have to follow the same rules, have to retain students who may be more difficult, just to be fair. Public schools don’t have a choice.”

Education leaders also weighed in Monday when asked about a change to the Idaho Republican Party platform that could impact how Republican legislators approach funding for higher education in Idaho. Adopted in June, the platform opposes “using taxpayer funding for programs beyond high school.”

Lewis-Clark State College President Cynthia Pemberton said the platform would be disastrous if implemented. About 70% of LCSC’s budget is spent on personnel costs, she said, and state appropriations represent about 40% of that budget, an amount too great to be made up by doubling or tripling tuition and fees.

“We would turn the lights off, lock the door and game over,” she said. “We are not an institution that has large resource dollars and indirect dollars coming in. We are dependent on tuition and fees and state appropriations.”

NIC President Nick Swayne agreed. For career and technical education alone, he said, about 78% of NIC’s funding comes from state dollars, while tuition and fees make up about 22% of that budget. For associate degree programs, the state provides about 42% of funding.

Swayne noted that about 500 students who graduate from Coeur d’Alene High School each year go on to some form of higher education. Many seek education out of state and don’t return. If Idaho colleges are defunded, that drain will only worsen.

“Just wait,” he said. “They will leave because it will become cheaper to go to Washington, Oregon, California or to the boutique liberal arts colleges in the Midwest and they aren’t coming back. If you want to break our economy, cut off funding for higher education. Good luck.”