School Board Plans August Vote As State, Federal Funding Flickers
BY Mark Dee
Backdropped by a broadening budget deficit and uncertain future funding, the Blaine County School District Board of Trustees on Aug. 12 is expected to vote on a resolution that would put a $3.85 million supplemental levy before voters on the November ballot.
The move comes as the BCSD grapples with rising costs, declining enrollment and murky signals around federal and state support to Idaho schools.
Left unmanaged, the BCSD’s budget shortfall could swell to $5 million for the 2026-27 school year, when the current $1.85 million supplemental levy expires, according to Trustee Dan Turner. Some cuts, primarily through staff attrition, winnow that figure closer to $3.85 million annually—the target figure for the prospective levy.
If approved by the board and then by voters, the money would be collected annually in 2027 and 2028, the two-year maximum life of the levy. (In reality, the local tax burden would be lower than the face value during that time; the state would reimburse a portion of the tab through a 2023 tax relief law that offset the cost of levies on property owners through state reserves.) The resolution is still being finalized, Superintendent Jim Foudy told the Wood River Weekly, but will be available alongside the meeting agenda prior to Aug. 12. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Community Campus.
In the runup to the August meeting, the district’s Finance Committee identified five line items they hope to pay for through a supplemental levy. For now, three are supported by the current $1.85 million levy, which lapses next year; two more are partially covered by state and federal outlays but supplemented by local money.
Preschool. This is paid for out of the current supplemental levy and is not funded by the state. The program is budgeted at $545,190 for fiscal 2025, rising to $595,238 by fiscal 2027, according to district data and modeling.
All-day kindergarten. This is paid for out of the current levy. The state pays for half-day kindergarten, but at a rate below BCSD’s average wages. The BCSD program costs $700,000, rising to $764,260 by 2027.
Summer school. This is paid for out of the current levy and bolstered by nonprofit support. The district budgeted $335,000 for it during the upcoming school year, rising to $365,753 by 2027.
School resource officers and cybersecurity. Currently, the district covers the $288,000 annual cost of SROs and the $137,000 cybersecurity contract out of its general fund. Those costs are projected to rise to $314,438 and $149,576 by the end of the proposed levy.
Special education programs. The school district’s special education program pays around $1.8 million above what’s reimbursed by state and federal allotments, Turner said.
“We’re trying to be really focused on high [return on investment] programs for student achievement, which is the business we’re in,” Turner said.
Turner and Board Chair Lara Stone, who both have backgrounds in finance, helped create the model the finance committee used to generate its projections. From there, the members scored programs on a rubric, weighing their value to students against potential savings.
Even then, they’re tracking a moving target. Lately, the state and federal governments have been fickle partners in budgeting. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Education froze roughly $171,000 allocated for the BCSD as part of a $33 million freeze on payments to Idaho schools. That money, which reimburses schools for the 2024-25 school year, was released in late July, according to BCSD Finance Director Mandy Crow, but she has not heard any updates about federal funding for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Crow also hasn’t heard from Idaho Gov. Brad Little on how much of the promised state money the district will receive going forward. In June, Little ordered all state agencies including the Department of Education to prepare for budget “holdbacks”—that is, cuts in state funding—due to lower-than-expected tax receipts across Idaho. Little asked agencies to mock up plans for 2%, 4% or 6% cuts. For the BCSD, that translates to $600,000, $1.2 million or $1.8 million in lost revenue. It doesn’t look like those cuts will come during the 2025-26 school year, Crow told the school board during its July meeting, but there is little clarity on how funding will look once the legislature convenes in this winter. Crow said she hasn’t heard anything more from the state since updating the board last month. At the time, she said that other finance directors around the state “are actively looking for ways to cut their budgets.”
“It’s very grey,” she told the board.
News of the holdback comes as the state launches a $50 million voucher program for parents to pay for private schools.
“It seems like funding for public education is under attack everywhere,” Turner said. “We’re not immune to that phenomenon.”
The finance committee assumed a roughly million-dollar state holdback in its projections—basically half of the worst-case scenario. It had inputted declining state support to begin with. That’s because the school district’s enrollment is shrinking as local birthrates decline; since state payouts are based on attendance, smaller schools mean less money. The incoming kindergarten class, which was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, is about 160 students smaller than the outgoing graduating class, Turner said.
Still, Blaine County is in a unique position among Idaho schools. It draws considerably more from local taxpayers than other school districts and spreads the bill among a substantial tax base. About $34 million of its $64 million general fund budget for 2025-26 comes from local property taxes. The lion’s share of that—some $29.5 million worth—comes from a “stabilization” levy authorized by state law. Beginning in 2006, as the state shifted school funding from a property-tax to a sales-tax base, districts deemed hardest hit were allowed to collect these permanent funds to cushion their transfer to the new model.
In Idaho, it’s a rare gift. Of the 115 school districts, only three of significant size are permitted to have one in place: the Boise Independent School District, McCall and Blaine County. The money is flat, and designed to decrease in significance as inflation eats its value over time. But it has allowed the BCSD to spend far more on students than the state writ large, which ranks last nationwide in per pupil expenditure, according to the Education Data Initiative, a nonprofit research group. Where the state spent an average of around $10,000 per student in 2024, Blaine County spends closer to $19,000, according to data compiled by Idaho Education News. Most of that money goes towards staff, whose wages and benefits make up around 85% of the general fund budget. On average, teachers in the BCSD are the best paid in the state, making nearly $91,000 for a 185-day contract. That’s about 50% more than statewide average, according to Idaho Ed News data.
Meanwhile, meager state support has made supplemental levies are increasingly common in Idaho. For the 2023-24, 87 of the state’s 115 school districts had one in place, Crow said, collecting $227.4 million.
If the BCSD’s new levy push fails, either in the board room or at the ballot box, the budget will need to be balanced by carving away at the district’s largest expense: staff. A “reduction in force” would mean downsizing by cutting the least experienced teachers until the books work—first in, first out, Turner said.
“It’s very difficult for me, as a fiscal conservative, to raise anybody’s taxes,” Turner said. “I wouldn’t be making that ask if we weren’t doing what we could to keep expenses down. Just know that we have student achievement as our North Star.”
