COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — This May, voters in Coeur d'Alene will be asked to pass a two year, $25 million supplemental levy. If it fails, the district says cuts will be deep.
This decision comes less than a week after two levies failed. School board members decided to pull the maintenance levy. If approved, median priced homes could pay an additional $77 in property taxes a year.
"In the end it's 311 employees," said Eric Davis, the district's director of human resources.
7th grade math teacher Julia Smulkowski worries her job could be on the line. "I'm not on a renewable contract so I'm probably up on that list and so it is scary to think what's going to happen."
Smulkowski is also worried about her students. No levy means no school sports or extracurricular activities. Two elementary schools would close.
"Watching kids come into my classroom being like, 'what's going to happen to my sports? what's going to happen to band?'" Smulkowski said. "So, many of our kids love their extracurriculars and that's why they're at school."
"The children should not be involved in any of this," Amy McCalmy said. "Teachers are involving them in the classroom and making the kids feel bad."
McCalmy opposes the levy and doesn't think it's fair the district gets a second chance to pass one.
"They're using the children right now as pawns of 'oh, you're not going to be able to play sports next year, they had the band out here playing earlier, this is going to get cut,' and it's like really?" McCalmy said. "Are those things going to get cut? I'm sure there's other things that could get cut."
"We are now cut down to the bone. There is no fat," District Superintendent Dr. Shon Hocker said.
By eliminating the maintenance levy and limiting the supplemental levy to two years, board members hope this proposal will be more appealing.
"There's been the impact of lack of trust," School District Zone 5 Chair Rebecca Smith said. "There's the impact of misinformation. There's the lack of some of us coming together."
The May 16th election is just eight weeks away.
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