Voters in Coeur d’Alene will be asked to approve a $35.5 million bond measure and a $32 million operating levy for the school district in mid March.
Coeur d Alene School District superintendent, Matt Handleman says the bond issue will help with overcrowding in the district due to the city’s population increase:
“We’re doing work on one elementary, one middle school, both of our comprehensive high schools, and we want build a new elementary school because our schools are way beyond capacity. We have some schools that were built for five hundred to five hundred fifty students, but there are as many as seven hundred students. We’re looking to build another elementary school in the northwest part of town where most of the growth is.”
Handleman says because of increasing property values, tax rates won’t increase if both the bond and levy are passed: “Although we are asking for an increase from 15 million to 16 million per year for two years, even with that increase and the new bond, same tax rate.”
More than 20 percent of the district’s operating funds come from levies.
Both issues come before voters on March 14th.
