On balance, it's yes for Whitefish levy

Taxpayers in the Whitefish School District have a big decision to make over the next couple of weeks. Do they want to spend $26.5 million for a new elementary school?

Ballots were mailed out Friday asking voters to decide whether the district should construct a new Muldown Elementary School just south of the new high school in Whitefish.

It’s a hefty price tag. The new school would be 84,000 square feet, big enough for 756 students in kindergarten through fourth grade. When a task force penciled it out, it would cost $14.4 million to fix Muldown’s critical needs, or $24.2 million to fix critical needs and add 35,000 more square feet. After studying 16 building scenarios, the task force recommended a brand new building. The functional portions of the current Muldown school would be saved for some future use.

Though it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, Kalispell is building its new elementary school for $15.2 million to house 450 student in grades K-5. It may sound like Kalispell got a bargain, but when you look at how many students are in each school, Whitefish is actually getting a better deal per student. Plus, spending $24 million to repair a foundering school doesn’t look like a very good option when for an extra $2.5 million you can build a state-of-the-art facility that will last for decades.

The biggest problem with Muldown Elementary is that a 50-year-old heating system is failing. Roof trusses can’t support the snow loads, which means maintenance workers have to use snowblowers to remove snow after every significant snowfall. Replacing the roof doesn’t seem to be a feasible option, and fixing the heating system alone was priced out at $5 million.

So it’s a weighty decision for Whitefish folks. This is a community that typically supports education bonds. But this is also the third building project voters are being asked to support in 14 years.

Whitefish supported a $10.2 million school bond in 2003 to rebuild Central School, now called Whitefish Middle School, and is still paying off that 20-year bond. In 2012 Whitefish supported a $14 million, 20-year bond for a new high school. That’s already a sizable tax load for Whitefish taxpayers.

The latest bond request for $26.5 million will cost the owner of a $250,000 home roughly $134 a year.

The Vote Yes for Muldown group makes very good points when supporters point out that a new school would be the least disruptive and most efficient option to address the needed upgrades. They’re also right that kicking the can down the road ultimately will cost more money.

The Inter Lake’s editorial board has voiced broad support for school building projects through the decades — and there’s been a lot of new construction in recent years valleywide as our post-World War II facilities are wearing out and the Flathead’s population has burgeoned. After careful consideration, we are supportive of Whitefish’s proposal. There doesn’t seem to be a viable cheaper alternative, but ultimately Whitefish taxpayers must decide whether this is a project they can afford.