Idaho districts ask voters to ease overcrowding, fund new schools. Here’s what happened
Two school districts in the Treasure Valley asked voters Tuesday to approve bonds of more than $50 million to help fund new elementary schools to deal with overcrowding and growth in the region.
But both districts failed to get enough votes to meet the required two-thirds majority to pass a bond in Idaho, according to unofficial results as of Wednesday morning.
About 65.7% of voters who cast ballots in the Vallivue School District approved the district’s request for a $55 million bond to fund two new elementary schools, security and building repairs, technology upgrades and the purchase of land for a future high school the district expects to need in the next 10 years.
The district fell just about one percentage point short of the required 66.67% necessary to pass the bond.
In the Middleton School District, about 53.5% of voters approved the district’s bond request. The Middleton School District asked voters to approve a $59.4 million bond to fund a new elementary school to alleviate overcrowding in the district’s existing schools, a career technical education center and repairs and maintenance for one of the district’s existing elementary schools.
Districts tried to pass bonds before
Bonds are the main way school districts can fund the construction of new schools. Idaho schools can’t legally collect impact fees on new development.
Both Middleton and Vallivue school districts have run similar bond proposals in previous months or years that have failed.
The Vallivue School District ran a proposal in March to build new elementary schools. That request received approval from about 64% of those who voted, also falling a few percentage points short of passing.
Tuesday was at least the fifth time since 2015 the Middleton School District had asked voters to approve a bond to fund a new elementary school.
Both Vallivue and Middleton school districts have been struggling to accommodate the growth in their areas — and only expect it to continue.
In Vallivue, the district has added 23 portable buildings — modular buildings that can be added to school property to accommodate more students — for a total of 46 additional classrooms at its elementary schools. But there’s no room to add more, said Joey Palmer, director of federal and state programs with the Vallivue School District.
The longer the district has to wait to build new schools and buy land, the higher the costs could be, he added.
“The more time that goes by, the higher the interest rate, the more expensive the real estate, the more expensive construction costs, the longer it will take to get the schools built,” Palmer told the Statesman last week, before the vote. “So when people say they want us to be fiscally conservative, this is our best option to be fiscally conservative.”
When the Middleton School District first asked voters to approve the building of a new elementary school in 2015, its schools were just reaching capacity, Superintendent Marc Gee told the Statesman last week. Now, two of the district’s elementary schools are far over capacity, and students and staff are forced to use the library and teacher’s lounge as makeshift classroom space.
Officials worry about how they will continue to accommodate the growth in the Treasure Valley without the funding to build new schools.
Gee said last week that if voters opted not to support the bond, he would find out why they voted no so he could respect the will of the voters and come up with a new plan. In the short term, he said, it will mean a lot more portable buildings. The district may also make budget cuts so it could fund some of the needed repairs for one of its elementary schools.
“The tough part about it is our job is to create a plan that our community can get behind,” Gee said.
