By MAUREEN DOLAN

Staff writer

COEUR d'ALENE - People want to know more about the $9.5 million professional-technical high school building they are being asked to approve financing for at the polls later this month.

Nearly 100 area residents showed up at the Mica Flats Grange Monday for a presentation about KTEC (Kootenai Technical Education Campus), a joint project being developed on the Rathdrum Prairie by the Post Falls, Lakeland and Coeur d'Alene school districts and many area business leaders.

Idaho's top education official, Tom Luna, came up from Boise to help promote the project and garner support for it at levy elections that will take place Aug. 24 in all three districts.

"What you are doing here in your community, these three school districts, you are setting an example for the rest of the state," Luna said. "This is exactly what we are hoping districts around the state will do, and that is together, they can provide services and opportunities for students that individually they could not."

"I hope it's successful because you have other districts around the state looking at you, in Pocatello and eastern Idaho that are waiting to see what happens here because they want to use it as a catalyst to help them accomplish the same thing," Luna said.

Why is it important to the community?

see KTEC, A4

from A1

There is an "inseparable link between a high quality education system and a growing robust economy," Luna said.

"It takes a growing economy to provide the tax base necessary to fund a high quality education system," Luna said. "Conversely, you have to have a robust, quality education system that is graduating students with the skills necessary to feed the needs of a growing economy. If you neglect one, eventually the other suffers."

Luna said they know 80 percent of jobs today and in the future require some form of post-secondary education, and the more students can access these programs in high school through vocational-technical training or dual credit opportunities, the more successful they will be.

"We want every child to graduate from high school, and when they graduate we want them to go into the workforce or on to college and when they get there, they do not need remediation ... We know we're not there yet. We still have students dropping out, we still have too many students showing up in the workforce or at college and they need remediation. This KTEC is a great example and an important piece of the puzzle."

Ron Nilson, owner of Ground Force Manufacturing and founding member of the KTEC planning committee, urged the crowd to support the project.

Part of the return on the taxpayers' investment, Nilson said, is that the school will be a tool for economic development organizations like Jobs Plus, to attract industry to the area.

But most importantly, Nilson said, it's for the children, to ensure their future success.

Nilson said people ask him how he can assure that KTEC "isn't just another education program."

"All I can do is tell you is that the superintendents and the teachers are as afraid of what's happening to our kids as we are," Nilson said.

The educators know they need this to help the children in their districts achieve success, he said.

The 20-acre site on the corner of Meyer and Lancaster Roads was paid for by donations from area businesses, and a significant donation by the family of the late Wayne Meyer.

The school would be governed by an executive board of the three school district superintendents and two business owners. An advisory board of 14 business owners would make ground-level decisions.

Operating costs would be covered with regular per-pupil state funding, enhanced funding from the Idaho Division of Professional-Technical Education on a program-by-program basis, and the school would likely qualify for some federal professional-technical education funding as well.

If the levies win 55 percent voter approval in each of the districts, the projected tax rate in Coeur d'Alene would be an additional 29 cents per $1,000 of taxable property assessed. The owner of a $150,000 home, after taking a 50 percent homeowners exemption, would see a $22 increase on his or her tax bill.

Post Falls' rate is projected at 40 cents per $1,000 of taxable property, and $30 per year for the next two years after the exemption. Passage would not result in higher tax bills, however, because of other property taxes being retired and coming off the rolls. If the levy fails, the property tax bill for the owner of a $150,000 home in Post Falls would decrease by $30 per year.

Lakeland homeowners would see an increase of 37 cents per $1,000 of taxable property, for a tax bill on a $150,000 home increased by $27.75 after the exemption.

North Idaho College has purchased property adjacent to the proposed high school's location. The college plans to eventually move its professional-technical programs onto the campus.