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A paradox: to deny the bi-annual replacement levy and expect quality education to continue are two notions that cannot currently coexist.

There has been a great deal of negativity regarding the upcoming school levy. However, most residents feel our students are receiving a tremendous education. The levy is needed in order for our schools to continue to thrive. The Founding Fathers, with their mistrust of centralized government, placed an emphasis on local control of public education that continues today. However, with that local control comes a degree of local fiscal responsibility. Our state is a local entity and the heavy burden placed on LPOSD property owners should be defrayed through increasing funding for education at the state level. Idaho currently ranks nearly last out of all states in per-pupil spending.

Efforts spent arguing with one another at the county level could be better served by strongly lobbying our state representatives to change this funding formula to ease the burden our bi-annual replacement levies put on local residents. In the meantime, it falls on each of us to continue the noble, yet basic civic responsibility, as stated by Founding Father John Adams that public schools must be “maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.”

In order to maintain the great country we live in, citizens must be willing to make sacrifices for the common good. We all benefit from an educated citizenry. Please vote “yes” on the replacement levy on March 14

STEVE SMITH

Sagle