WBCSD hosts additional meeting to discuss financials

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Trustees with the West Bonner County School District will continue with a series of meetings Monday, June 17 at 6 p.m. to iron out the 2024-2025 budget and look toward the district’s future. The board has met repeatedly throughout the month, grappling with the ramifications of the May election, which saw the failure of a $4.7 million school funding levy at the polls.

West Bonner’s upcoming meeting will feature updates about funding for extracurricular and co-curricular activities, as well as a report from the Grants and Fundraising Working Group, which was established June 5 to work with the Innovia Foundation and seek alternative sources of income for the district.

Local schoolchildren holding signs and banners to support the eventual recall of West Bonner County School District trustees Susan Brown and Keith Rutledge. Photo courtesy Idaho Education News.

The five-hour June 5 meeting included tears from both board and audience members as the community debated which schools would need to shut down following the failure of the one-year, supplemental levy.

“We’re taking cash that we have today and we’re moving it over to the budget to start next year so that we can meet salaries, keep the buildings open and service our students,” WBCSD Finance Director Dean Davis said at the meeting. “As we talked about last week, the Government Finance Officers Association recommends a 15% reserve at any given time of the General Fund and we’re short — very short — of that.”

He added: “As we get later into next fiscal year and as we move into 2026 without a levy or some other revenue source, we’re just not going to be able to maintain our footprint and meet payroll and that type of thing.”

Board members considered financial breakdowns for each possible school closure, and after hearing vehement opposition to the idea of closing Priest Lake Elementary School, ultimately decided to shutter Priest River Junior High School and move seventh- and eighth-grade students into one half of the Priest River Lamanna High School.

“To rehab the [junior high’s] existing infrastructure, I think you could probably do something with that building for $7 [million] or $8 million, but we don’t have that money, do we? And then we have four other buildings,” said WBCSD Facilities and Maintenance Operations Director Ryan Carruth, who testified that the historic building was the most expensive to maintain.

The district will still need to budget for general maintenance to ensure the building doesn’t fall into disrepair while unoccupied.

In response to concerns over students ranging in age from seventh to 12th grade intermingling, PRLHS Principal Matt George proposed creating a “school within a school,” placing the seventh- and eighth-graders and ninth- through 12th-graders at opposite ends of the school, separating lockers and segregating locker rooms by grade.

Board members were unanimous in their approval of a motion to keep elementary schools open for kindergarten through sixth grade, and move seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school — including the suggested division of student populations. In addition, the approved motion called for keeping the junior high building heated and “seeking additional funding from the community” for a period of one year.

Davis clarified that, though “closing one school is better than none,” it’s a temporary solution that will not be sustainable. Despite the loss, the district will remain short on funds and additional cuts may be necessary, depending on the generosity of donations toward extra- and co-curricular activities, as well as a proposed endowment fund, managed by the Innovia Foundation, which would help cover general expenses.

The board has yet to decide whether it will add another levy to the ballot this November, which, if passed, would help secure the district in the 2025-2026 school year.