COEUR d'ALENE - The Coeur d'Alene School Board voted 4-1 Monday night to increase its supplemental levy to an even $15 million to cover the cost of maintenance and operations.

The increase is a little more than $2.1 million more than the supplemental levy taxpayers have approved at the polls over the past four years.

The increase would cost taxpayers an additional $2.50 per month on their property tax bills, and combined with the existing levy would total about $216 per year for a $200,000 home with the homeowners exemption.

The levy, if passed, is for two years of funding.

Trustee Tom Hearn made the first suggestion to raise the levy by $3 million to cover at least half of the school district's unfunded needs.

Trustee Tom Hamilton said he understands the dramatic need to increase the funding since the state has reduced its funding for the school district by $4 million since 2008.

Hamilton asked Superintendent Matt Handelman what he would recommend for an increase to the levy.

"$3 million might be pushing it a little," he told the board, saying an even $15 million might be easier to sell to the voters who have typically supported the funding in the past. "We don't want to tip that fulcrum. I would recommend a $2.1 million increase."

Board Chair Christa Hazel told Hearn she absolutely agrees with the programs that he wanted to fund except for the expansion of the district's day-long kindergarten program.

Hazel said she couldn't justify expanding a program when the district has so many other needs and teachers are actually holding fundraisers and writing their own grants to try and fund programs such as art.

Coeur d'Alene High School art teacher Terri Leonard testified earlier in the meeting, saying she has had a zero-dollar budget since the recession hit six years ago and it has never been restored.

Leonard said she has been writing grants - sometimes successfully, sometimes not - and spending her own money on art supplies for her students. She said the class also holds fundraisers just to earn enough money for paper on which to paint.

She asked the board for at least a moderate increase in the levy to cover the cost of teaching a class.

Trustee Terri Seymour asked why the district is offering classes that they can't afford to fund at even the most basic level.

Handelman said each school is different in its approach to funding programs and in this case Coeur d'Alene High School was relying on the creativity of staff to cover its shortfalls.

Trustee Dave Eubanks, a retired wood shop teacher, said in the last couple years of his teaching career, he also had to contend with a zero-dollar budget for his class.

He expressed his sympathy to Leonard, and advocated for increasing the levy amount.

Hamilton said he would be willing to support an increase, but only if the board would agree to earmark some of the money toward specific programs to ensure it didn't get absorbed into the general fund and become fodder for next year's union negotiations.

"Matt how do you feel about having your hands tied if we increase the levy?" he asked Handelman.

He was also concerned that voters may interpret the levy as a backdoor attempt to pay for budget shortfalls on the Winton Elementary reconstruction project.

The board decided earlier in the meeting to cover that shortfall with almost $1.9 million in unrestricted reserves.

Still, Hamilton said, that money is going to have to be replenished and the board needs to ensure that voters know that money will not be used to backfill that account.

Instead, the board has agreed that it will look at selling surplus property to backfill the unrestricted reserve account.

Seymour said she is concerned the voters might reject the levy if there is any increase to it because of the recent turmoil with the teachers union over health care benefits and now the Winton budget shortfall.

"If this doesn't pass it would be devastating," she said.

She said she could support holding the line on the current amount that voters have approved in the past.

A motion was made to support a resolution calling for $15 million a year for the next two fiscal years starting on July 1, 2015 and will sunset on June 30, 2017.

The motion carried 4-1, with Seymour voting against it.