[Vision2020] Fortunately Phil Roderick and his Allies were Wrong

[Art Deco]

Phil, et al,

On May 4, 2005 you wrote the following about the Boundary County School District:

This is what happens when a brand new high school is built and no money to maintain it. O & M money. Keep in mind this is the second time this bond has come up. It will fail again.

If our School District and Trustees were doing their job properly and did a simple 10% cut back of expenditures and overhead, we would have the dollars to build a brand new high school and for it to run and do repairs on the elementary schools. 
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Boundary County identifies cuts if school levy vote doesn't pass

>From staff reports
May 4, 2005

Boundary County's School Board has approved a list of cuts to be made if voters reject a second-attempt Maintenance and Operations Levy on May 31.

The proposed levy, which would collect $799,700 a year for two years, is about $185,000 less annually than the levy expiring this spring....


Sorry Phil, see the news article posted below.

Despite the fact that Boundary County is far, far more impoverished and contains a much high percentage of ultra-right wing and/or religious crackpots than the Moscow School District, Boundary County citizens again ponied up to keep the future of their children brighter.  Although the district will be forced into a four day school week, the system will still be able to provide a basic, enriching, giving-hope-to-those-who-wish-to-succeed education.

I attended Boundary schools from the fourth grade through high school.  My family was on the extreme lower edge of poverty.  I am very, very grateful to the Boundary County citizens who sacrificed greatly so that many of us were able to climb out of the abyss of extreme poverty.  I know that many of my former classmates feel the same way toward their benefactors.  About 60% of my high school graduating class went on to college or other educational institutions.


Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com


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>From The Spokesman-Review, June 1, 2005

Boundary voters pass school levy, avert cuts 
Measure saves extracurricular activities, but four-day week stays
            Saved 
            The vote likely rescued Naples Elementary from closure.
           
     

Taryn Brodwater
Staff writer
June 1, 2005

"Vote Yes for Kids" was the message levy supporters carried as they walked the Kootenai River bridge in Bonners Ferry on Tuesday.

Voters in the Boundary County School District took heed.

A last-ditch effort to save everything from extracurricular activities to a small, rural elementary school was met with success. A supplemental, two-year levy was approved with 57 percent of the vote Tuesday, sparing the district from bone-deep budget cuts. The vote was 2,003 in favor and 1,494 against, said district board chairman Tina Wilson.

     
"We are proud of our community for stepping up to the plate," Wilson said. "Everybody was working together."

The levy failed by 82 votes when put before voters on March 29. Board members, who initially had said there wouldn't be a second try, relented, rather than make the deep cuts.

The supplemental maintenance and operations levy will collect $799,700 a year for the next two years. The owner of a home with $100,000 taxable value will pay about $149.51 a year - a reduction of $34.64 from the expiring levy.

Because $185,000 less is being collected each year of the levy, the district has already made some money-saving moves, including shortening the school week to four days.

The vote appears to have saved Naples Elementary, a small-town school slated for closure if the levy had failed. It also saved school sports and other extracurricular activities, secured the purchase of new textbooks to replace outdated ones, and spared more than $30,000 in technology funding. A handful of positions, including those of rural elementary principals, would have been eliminated.
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