Woodward tackles LPOSD levy questions

SANDPOINT — On Tuesday, voters head to the polls to decide the fate of a two-year, $25.4 million replacement maintenance and operations supplemental levy.

Our district is not alone in asking taxpayers for support, as the vast majority of school districts in Idaho are forced to do the same thing due to the state’s abdication of funding responsibility for public education — a responsibility that has fallen to local taxpayers over the past dozen years or so because of changes in Idaho’s funding formula.

Along with money for extracurricular activities in both academics and athletics, the proposed levy also would pay for instructional materials, technology and — the biggest piece of this pie — a move to make local wages and salaries competitive with nearby school districts.

It would be easy to toss that last budget item aside as frivolous but for one fact: Not only has it become harder to hang onto good teachers who can make more money by going elsewhere, but the level of interest in job postings has started to dry up as the Lake Pend Oreille School District’s pay lags behind districts that are staying ahead of the curve.

Superintendent Shawn Woodward discussed the reasoning behind moving toward a more competitive stance, as well as the upward enrollment trend that is demanding more from educators as classroom rosters grow longer.

Q: Let’s start with the elephant in the room — the $25.4 million levy amount. Why so much money and why now?

A: One of the strategic priorities for the district is in the area of recruiting and retaining talented staff. That priority was identified last school year by feedback from the community, surveys and public stakeholder engagement meetings. Over and over, the feedback emphasized the importance of hiring and keeping good people.

Acting on that as a top priority, the increase will finally allow the wages and salaries for both teachers and classified staff to become more regionally competitive in Idaho.

Q: That’s become a hot button for educators, hasn’t it, since they can apply to other districts in Idaho — or across the border in Washington — and take home a bigger paycheck?

A: The interesting thing I’d like for readers to know is that we’re not trying to be competitive with those Washington salaries — we just would not be able to do that. We’re just trying to be competitive with Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene and Lakeland.

Q: OK, so you adjust educator compensation to become competitive and you address the other components of funding extracurricular activities, instructional materials and technology — how does that roll up to this dollar figure being requested?

A: We did a salary study for both our certificated and classified staff, just like the county did, and then we arrived at an hourly rate for our classified staff and salary for our teachers based on what would allow us to be competitive. Then, we did the math on that.

If we want our starting teachers to be at $40,000 and our teachers with 16 years of experience and a master’s degree to be closer to $70,000, how much would that cost us? How much would we be receiving from the state and how much would we have to ask our local taxpayers to kick in?

Q: How big a move is that, in terms of compensation?

A: Right now, the statewide minimum for teachers is $35,800. A fairly large percentage of our senior staff will be leaving soon, so we want to get up to $40,000 so we’ll have a larger pool of applicants to choose from when we replace those staff.

On the top end — those teachers with 16 years of experience and a master’s degree — right now, we’re at $65,250. Lakeland, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene are at about $68,000.

Just for perspective, if you look at Newport and Mead over in Washington, Newport is at $81,000 and Mead is at $97,000. So, we’re trying to become regionally competitive with salaries that are also more in line with the cost of living here.

Q: We can’t dance around the impact of state funding formula for education and how it leaves districts statewide holding the bag for drumming up their own funds every couple of years. Is that a fair statement?

A: Well, yeah. I believe it was 2006, when it was decided that all taxes that went to schools would have to be voter approved. Prior to that, there was a portion of people’s tax dollars that automatically went to schools. The state government basically said, ‘You need to ask the taxpayers to vote as to whether or not they want to support their local schools — you’re not going to get anything automatically.’

There are only a handful of students in the State of Idaho who do not benefit from local tax dollars going into their school district.

Q: I think one of the figures that concerns people is the 49 percent increase in the levy amount. How would you respond to those concerns?

A: The increase in the overall levy amount is significant, but the overall average tax increase for property owners is modest. An example would be a home with an assessed valuation of $250,000 would have an increase in the levy amount of $6.92 a month.

Q: How does that stack up compared to statewide figures?

A: With the increase, the tax rate in our district will still remain 50 percent below the state average.

Q: I’ve seen stats that say that more than 80 percent of Idaho school districts receive funding through levies. Is that figure correct?

A: It’s actually 83 percent. If you look at all tax dollars — including facility tax dollars and maintenance and operations supplemental levies — I believe there are only two or three school districts in the entire state that receive no tax dollars. And those are school districts that have single schools. One of them serves eight students and the other, I believe, serves 12 students.

Q: Let’s talk about the local electorate. Is this all down to mobilizing the already ‘yes’ votes and moving forward knowing that the ‘no’ contingent will vote that way no matter what?

A: I’ve learned over the last seven years here that there are just some people who are always going to be ‘no’ voters when it comes to any taxes going to public entities. I always reach out to those folks and ask, ‘Hey, are you willing to sit down and talk with me about this?’ The answer, 95 percent of the time, is ‘No — I’ve made my mind up.’ We know that’s a segment of our population.

But when it comes to public education, we also have a group that’s going to be voting ‘yes.’ Especially when we continue to be a really good investment. We continue to have good growth in student achievement and, as long as we continue to do that, they are going to vote ‘yes.’

Q: Any chance of persuading some of those ‘no’ votes to cross over?

A: Over the last three months, I’ve probably had 40 different people call me up who were undecided and wanted to talk with me. When they take the time to listen and learn more, to sit down and look at the budget with us, I would say 90 percent of them turn into ‘yes’ voters.

Q: How much do demographics play into all of this? As older residents move in from other states — people with no kids or grandkids in local schools — is there a sentiment that ‘We’ve already supported schools where we came from; we’re done?’

A: I personally know many different people who specifically moved here because we have some of the lowest tax rates in the United States. So that does make it challenging for us when, every two years, you have to go back to the public to ask for school support through tax dollars.

At the same time, the demographer’s report shows a pretty substantial increase in enrollment going forward, so maybe that will be changing over time, where we will be having more families with children moving into the area, as well.

One thing I think people forget is that, even if you do not have children or grandchildren in our schools, there’s a direct tie between the impact of quality public education on all services in the community. It’s pretty shortsighted to say, ‘Hey, I don’t have children in the school system — it doesn’t make any difference to me.’ Actually, it makes a huge difference if you want quality services in your community.

Q: There’s a lot of buzz around what some people see as a disconnect between enrollment figures and the amount of money being requested in this levy. Can you get us up to speed on the actual enrollment trajectory for the district? Down or up?

A: Sure. In the last four years, we’ve had a 7.5 percent increase in our enrollment — that’s a fact. We just had a demographer come and study our population in this county and the findings say we’re looking at a pretty substantial increase in enrollment over the next 10 years.

I hear the argument, but our enrollment is increasing. The other piece is that it does cost more money, even with flat enrollment, to pay competitive wages. We’ve been behind for years and years in wages and salaries for our employees. Because of that, our pool for recruiting staff has been shrinking and shrinking.

Q: How dramatic has that trend become? Is the applicant pool drying up, or simply diminishing somewhat?

A: Five years ago, it wasn’t uncommon in our district to have 30 people apply for a teaching job and we’d have 30, well-qualified people to choose from. Now, it’s not uncommon for us to have only two or three people apply for those very same jobs and, often, they don’t have the required certification. So we end up hiring teachers without teaching certificates, which we can do by law if they’re enrolled in a teacher certification program and working on their degree.

In other words, the pool has dwindled so much that we’re now having to hire non-certified people to teach in our classrooms.

Q: There seems to be a disturbing trend this time around of a very personal, mean-spirited tone that has infected the levy debate. Is that your experience?

A: It’s the worst it’s been since I’ve been here. When you look at social media and some of the letters to the editor, it’s just downright mean-spirited name-calling that is very disheartening. The people who are willing to say just about anything from behind their keyboards are the same people who are unwilling to sit down in person and have a civil discourse on the issues.

It’s a sad state of affairs and it has hit a lot of us hard this time around. At the same time, I would say that most people in this community are not that way. They’re kind, they will have a civil conversation with you and they’re very supportive of the good work going on in our schools. That makes it all worth it, but it’s too bad that this is happening right now and, hopefully, it’ll get better.

Q: After all of the district’s presentations on this, after all the discussions you’ve had leading up to Tuesday’s election, how are you feeling about the outcome?

A: Over the last three replacement levies, we’ve averaged a 64 percent passage rate. We’ve enjoyed tremendous support from our community and, as superintendent, I’d just like to say, ‘Thank you.’

The anti-tax group has been very, very loud. But, at the same time, we are so lucky to have the quiet support of the majority of our voting public.

We just hope that people get out there and make sure that they vote on Tuesday.