School board won't seek another levy soon

When taxpayers voted down a $4.1 million levy in Kalispell Public Schools’ high school district last week, district officials were stunned.

It was the first time in 27 years that a building reserve levy request from the district had failed.

Voters inside the Kalispell elementary district, in addition to supporting a $2.8 million elementary building reserve levy, supported the high school request, with 2,559 votes in its favor and 2,185 votes against it. But voters in outlying districts rejected the levy, voting 1,686 to 1,051 against it.

At first, Kalispell school board chairwoman Anna Marie Bailey said she considered the levy’s failure a temporary setback. After giving the district and the public a chance to regroup, she said she was optimistic enough to think Kalispell could run the levy again, this time successfully.

But then she started getting feedback from voters.

They told her they had understood what the district had asked for, but they couldn’t afford it.

Now, Bailey told her fellow trustees Tuesday night, she didn’t think the board should run the levy again right away.

Trustees certified the election results and discussed the failed high school levy at their regular meeting Tuesday night. Most agreed with Bailey that requesting the levy again right away would be a mistake.

“I think it’s way too soon to even think about running this thing again,” Tom Clark said.

Rick Davis agreed: “I think it might be offensive to people to run it again within that 40-day window.”

Legally, the school board is allowed to re-run a levy request 40 days after calling for an election. Trustees seemed to agree that 40 days was much too soon to run another election. Even trying again in February was too soon, some said.

Further complicating the issue is the budget shortfall the district faces next year.

Federal stimulus money helped the Kalispell budget this year, but those funds were one time only. Next year, when staff members get their union-negotiated 2 percent pay raises and the automatic raises they get each year for additional teaching experience and education, the district likely will have to come up with a budget about 4 percent larger than this year’s, district clerk Todd Watkins said.

That’s only an estimate at this point, he said, “but I think it’s probably pretty accurate.”

Watkins said the elementary budget would need about a $778,000 special levy to make up the shortfall, and the high school budget would need a levy of about $358,000. Over the next few months, the board will discuss whether the district can make cuts to eliminate or minimize the shortfall or whether it will have to go to the voters in May.

Before running another election, Davis said the board and district need to go through the budget and trim as much as possible to “show the public we’ve done our homework.”

Some of that trimming should come at the highest level, John Osweiler said.

“I think we need to look at straight-across cuts in administration,” he said. “Maybe even programs, and as much as I love sports, sports.”

Unless the district had done all it could to pare down its budget, and unless it went to the taxpayers because there was nowhere else to get necessary funding, Osweiler said he would vote against any levy Kalispell put out.

“I’ll vote no unless we can prove to taxpayers we have done our homework and made cuts,” he said.

Bette Albright said she thought that’s what voters wanted to see.

“People are out of work and people don’t have money,” Albright said. “I think some of them look at the school district and say, none of you have been laid off, gone without paychecks, been cut back. These are the people who are voting.”

Their message, she added, seems to be, “We’re cutting back. We expect you to cut back, too.”

Don Murray was optimistic that voters might support the high school building reserve levy if it ran again.

“To assume that we have to make cuts to get community support — I don’t think we have the evidence to support that,” he said.

Consider the elementary levy, Murray said; it passed handily, with 2,789 votes in favor and 2,086 opposing it. Maybe people who would have supported the high school levy hadn’t made it to the polls that day, for whatever reason. Voter turnout ranged from a little over 10 percent in the Olney-Bissell district to 18.7 percent in Cayuse Prairie.

Inside the city limits, more than 27 percent of registered voters cast ballots that day.

Jean Barragan suggested that the district might need to spell out exactly what will happen without building reserve money.

The Evergreen School District ran a levy two or three times and finally told its voters exactly what would be cut if it didn’t pass, she said. While that might sound like a threat or be a “shameful thing” to the board, it could sway some voters.

“We may have to say where the cuts are coming from, because that does rally some people,” Barragan said.

The board will continue to discuss its funding options over the next several months. The next scheduled meeting is a work session at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 17 in the Kalispell Middle School library.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com