The Plummer-Worley School Board will need to make $378,579 in cuts to balance next year's budget after the district's two-year supplemental levy failed on Tuesday.

Superintendent Judi Sharrett said the possible cuts include, but are not limited to, reducing kindergarten to half a day, electives, sports programs and staffing. She said the board will also banter going to a four-day school week.

"I'll have to put out options for the board to consider," Sharrett said, adding that detailed cut possibilities haven't been hammered out.

She said the board is expected to meet as soon as Wednesday to discuss whether to re-float another levy in August and details on the cut possibilities.

Sharrett wouldn't speculate on whether she expects the board to propose another or the same levy.

"I'll let the board decide that," she said.

Districts are required to start the fiscal year with a balanced budget.

"We have to have the contracts sent out by July 1, so we need to know who the staff is going to be," Sharrett said.

Then, if a levy is proposed again in August and passes, programs and/or staffing can be re-instated.

Tuesday's levy, which would have been for $550,000 per year, received 45 percent approval. A vote of 50 percent, plus one was needed for the proposal to pass. It would have funded school safety equipment, electives, full-time kindergarten and other programs and services.

If the vote would have been held in Benewah County alone, the levy would have narrowly passed, but with Kootenai County's votes factored in it failed.

If it would have passed, the owner of a home with a taxable value of $100,000 would have paid $9.67 more in taxes per month.

Sharrett said she believes taxpayers already shouldering the cost of the new elementary school in Plummer combined with the sluggish economy and it being the district's first supplemental levy vote were factors in the vote.

"I suspect it has something to do with moving the elementary out of Worley," she said. "That was hard for folks from Worley."

She said there are also complexities that come with a district that serves two counties and four communities, but wouldn't elaborate.

"Every one of those communities is different and has different needs," she said. "What may be true for one, may not be for the other."

She believes the district did a good job of getting the word out on the levy to the public.

"We knew it would be nip and tuck, but also felt positive about the possibility of it passing," she said.

Sharrett said she hopes St. Maries' levy situation in which a proposal failed in March and the same levy passed on Tuesday is an example of how districts in need of funding can eventually obtain money without cutting further.

Plummer-Worley has cut more than $1.6 million from the budget since 2007 and $1.3 million of it has been in staffing.