SPR s Doug Nadvornick reports.
Voters in north Idaho approved most of the school levies on Tuesday’s ballot, a few by narrow margins.
Two have apparently fallen short. The West Bonner County School District measure has about 46% approval. The Post Falls levy is 33 votes behind out of 2,900 ballots cast.
There are also tight margins in the Boundary County and Lakeland School Districts, but with the opposite result.
In Post Falls, Superintendent Dena Naccarato issued a statement expressing disappointment with such a close loss. The school district has enjoyed overwhelming community support for many years, and we wonder if some of our supporters took the success for granted and did not get to the polls. The levy is fundamental not supplemental, so we owe it to our students to try again in May, she wrote. The money is used to maintain student instructional and extracurricular programming. In addition, we need to remain competitive with our surrounding school districts if we
SPR s Doug Nadvornick reports.
There are a few similarities when you review school levy results from Spokane and Kootenai counties during the last two months. While most of the levies were approved, the winning margins have been smaller than in past years.
We talked with representatives of two north Idaho districts that had successful measures on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Coeur d’Alene School District spokesman Scott Maben reflected back on how Tuesday’s levy results, nearly 60% support, compared with past levies.
“Two years ago we were just under 70% support. Four years ago we had both a levy and a big bond measure for school construction on the ballot. The levy, back then, I think, was closer to 79%, he said.
Credit Courtesy of Coeur d Alene School District
Two Kootenai County school levies are on the verge of being approved, one other is too close to call, if Tuesday night’s results hold.
In the Coeur d’Alene School District, voters have given a two-year, $40 million levy nearly 60% approval, with about two-thirds of the precincts reporting.
A two-year, $19 million levy in the Lakeland School District has 53% support in Kootenai County. The levy is running about 50-50 in Bonner County.
The levy in Post Falls is too close to call. It has a two-vote lead with more than 2,300 votes counted. It’s a two-year, almost $10 million measure.