Voters rejected West Ada’s school levy. It’s back two weeks later with no changes.
Idaho’s largest school district will take a second shot at renewing its $14-million-per-year school levy, hoping to find a more favorable electorate this summer.
The West Ada School Board approved a plan Monday to rerun its two-year, $28-million supplemental levy Aug. 25.
The terms and amount of the levy have not changed since voters rejected it during May’s primary. It will cost taxpayers $52.60 per $100,000 of taxable assessed value.
“This isn’t $50 of new money, necessarily,” school board member Steve Smylie said during Monday’s virtual board meeting. “It’s simply extending an existing levy.
“It’s up to us to communicate, as a school district, we don’t really have any other tools. The actions of the Legislature in 2006 very much limited the hands of the school districts. The overwhelming majority of school districts in Idaho have to rely on these supplemental levies.”
May’s rejection from voters blew a 5% hole in West Ada’s general education budget. The $14 million levy helped fund the district’s current programs, number of school days and student-to-teacher ratios.
West Ada’s latest plan to fill that hole relies on using $11.355 million of its savings account, as well as the loss of 10 certified teachers and 10 classified staff across the district.
The district sets aside money every year to prepare for any financial emergencies or shortfalls. West Ada’s fund balance — or rainy-day fund — ran a deficit last school year. At its current rate of spending, that rainy-day account will run dry in two years and leave West Ada searching for more permanent cuts, district spokesperson Eric Exline testified.
“The hope and expectation is never to have to use it,” West Ada Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Gillen said during Monday’s meeting. “But this is a situation where it’s raining.”
West Ada voters previously passed a levy for the same $14 million amount four times dating back to 2012. But 54% voted against the levy’s renewal in May as turnout skyrocketed during the mail-in election Idaho hosted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The district received 69% of 15,142 votes in 2018. But turnout more than tripled in May with 46,367 casting ballots. The district never saw more than 27,000 votes cast in any of the previous four times the levy passed.
Levies need a simple majority to pass.
Exline testified county clerks informed the district they expect in-person polling locations to reopen in August. But he added 90% of voters who requested an absentee ballot in May also requested them for August and November.
West Ada already delayed a $68.7 million bond scheduled for May as voters braced for the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. It planned to use that bond for a host of projects, including a new elementary school in South Meridian, replacing Eagle Elementary and adding classrooms at Centennial High and Desert Sage Elementary.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 12:43 PM.
