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The Coeur d’Alene School District will have a school safety and maintenance levy on the August 30th ballot.
This proposed levy would provide $8 million a year for the next 10 years. The funding will allow the school district to address hundreds of safety, health and maintenance priorities in schools and other district facilities.
Deferred Maintenance Project List
To view the full list of deferred maintenance projects recommended for 2023-2032, SELECT THIS LINK. This report is based on data from the Ameresco Asset Tracking Database used by the Coeur d'Alene School District. This report shows the active list of recommended work for Fiscal Year 2023, as well as all additional needs currently identified in subsequent years of the 10-year levy timeline, with a recommended inflation factor applied by Ameresco.
Deferred maintenance is constantly evolving, and the district may need to adjust priorities based on current circumstances. However, this report provides a comprehensive view of the facility needs currently due and expected to come due over the next 10 years. Items categorized in "good" or "fair" condition may be downgraded to "poor" or "critical" as they reach the end of their life-cycle.
Safety and Security Projects
To view the list of school safety and security projects, SELECT THIS LINK.Citizen Committee Recommendation
In the spring of 2022, the Long Range Planning Committee for Coeur d'Alene Public Schools presented to the Board of Trustees a recommendation for a School Plant Facilities Levy to begin to address a growing backlog of building maintenance and school security needs throughout the school district. The levy would provide funding for school safety and deferred maintenance projects for the next 10 years. The Long Range Planning Committee concluded that these needs are the district's highest priority in the Long Range Facilities Plan update developed during the 2021-22 school year.
Why this is needed
We have 40 buildings across 17 school campuses and other sites. This includes our school bus yard, maintenance shops, school meal operations, textbook depository, technology warehouse, public meeting space and district offices. All of this represents $346 million in public investment.
On average, district facilities are 33 years old, and the list of overdue repairs, upgrades and equipment replacement has grown long. The price tag stretches well beyond what our operating budget covers.
We have heating and cooling systems giving out, roofs and flooring that are past their lifespans, aging sound systems, inadequate alarms, outdated security cameras, and crumbling curbs and parking lots, to name a few examples.
This growing backlog of work is known as “deferred maintenance,” and the cost today exceeds $25 million. Without a dedicated and sufficient funding source, the cost will snowball, hitting a projected $68 million within 5 years and topping $101 million within 10 years. By making this investment now, we will save millions in tax dollars in the long run.
Spread out over 10 years, the proposed school safety and maintenance levy will finally allow us to take care of our existing assets and make critical improvements in the area of safety and health. We can improve air quality, strengthen school security systems, and apply new and proven technologies to keep threats away from our students and employees.
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How many buildings does the Coeur d'Alene School District have?
We have 40 buildings spread across 17 school campuses and four operational facilities (transportation, maintenance, food services and district office). On average, our facilities are 30 years old.
What is the value of all these facilities?
$346 million in structural assets.
What is this levy?
It's called a School Plant Facilities Levy, or SPFL, and it's a type of property tax levy. Voters decide whether to approve allowing the district to levy a set amount each year, for up to 10 years. The funds would be deposited into a capital projects fund to cover the cost of system repairs, equipment replacement and construction. Because the amount needed is levied annually, the district does not need to borrow funds that would require interest payments. This levy will require 55% voter approval to pass.
How much is the school district requesting?
This levy request is for $8 million per year, for 10 years. This would pay for building safety and maintenance projects in all of our schools and other district facilities for the next 10 years. The funds cannot be used for any personnel costs.
Why does Coeur d'Alene Public Schools need this levy?
The school district's budget covers basic maintenance of buildings. What we lack is ongoing funding for larger repairs and equipment replacement, such as aging heating and cooling systems, roofs, hot water heaters, flooring, sound systems, alarm systems, door locks and security cameras. This backlog of work, known as deferred maintenance, has been growing for many years.
The average age of Coeur d'Alene Public School facilities is 30 years. That age is showing, and it's only going to get worse. It would cost $25 million today just to catch up with all the work that has been postponed. We expect it will cost tens of millions of dollars more to address additional building maintenance needs through 2033. Without a dedicated source of funding for safety and maintenance needs, our deferred maintenance deficit is expected to balloon to $68 million within 5 years, and to $101 million within 10 years.
How would this levy impact my taxes?
If it were based on this year's property tax assessments in our District, the proposed safety and maintenance levy would add about 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable assessed value. But if approved this August, the safety and maintenance levy will be calculated based on next year's property tax assessments. With the sizable increase in this year's assessed property values in Kootenai County, the overall tax rate supporting Coeur d'Alene Public Schools is projected to drop next year. As a result, we project that the proposed safety and maintenance levy would add about 31 cents per $1,000 of taxable assessed value in the first year of tax collections.
At that rate, the owner of a house valued at $550,000 would pay an estimated $132 a year for school safety and maintenance projects. (This factors in the state's $125,000 homeowner exemption.)
What goes into the school taxes we pay?
Idaho school districts do not have fixed tax rates, like other taxing districts do. Instead, we rely on voter-approved supplemental levies and construction bonds, which tax only until a set funding goal is reached. As a result, school tax rates rise or fall relative to the total value of property within the boundaries of the school district. The greater the property value, the lower the tax rate.
Your property tax statement currently shows several separate line items for the Coeur d'Alene School District:
- Our voter-approved 2-year supplement levy, which pays for operations not funded by the state.
- School construction bonds, approved by voters in 2012 and 2017.
- A small amount that covers liability insurance costs.
Together, these three items generated an overall school tax rate of $1.56 per $1,000 this year. As assessed values go up, and as new property value is added through growth and construction, our levy rate goes down. Our overall tax rate is expected to drop to 98 cents per $1,000 in 2023. The graph below shows how the levy rate for Coeur d'Alene Public Schools has been steadily decreasing since 2016.
If voters approve the safety and maintenance levy this August, it would show up on your tax bill as a separate line item, and the new overall tax rate for the school district would be an estimated $1.30 per $1,000 -- still lower than it was this year.
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CDA Press - 7/31/2022
CDA Press - 6/22/2022
CDA Press - 6/19/2022
