Not long after the holiday season, school districts might ask taxpayers to give again.

What that gift looks like is slowly coming into view.

For people living within Coeur d’Alene School District boundaries, a two-year supplemental levy in the $30 million range almost certainly will go to voters next March because the district’s ongoing operations budget assumes that vital slice of funding. But on Monday night, the district’s school board also heard an analysis that concluded the district could seek an additional $30 million bond issue.

The school board decides how to use the bond money, but the Long Range Planning Committee — a board-appointed advisory group — has set a few priorities: building a new elementary school in the northwest part of town, making additions to both the high schools so they don't need portable classrooms anymore, and expanding some of the common spaces in the high schools to accommodate increasing enrollment.

Eric Heringer, managing director of Piper Jaffray in Boise, said a $30 million bond issue would keep tax rates where they are — around $2.33 per $1,000 of property value.

A combination of low interest rates and growing population — which means a larger taxable market — makes now a good time for the district to seek bond approval and the two-thirds vote it needs for passage, Heringer said.

With a remaining debt capacity of $495 million, Heringer outlined a plan that could:

• Increase the district’s current supplemental levy from $15 million to $16 million a year or attempt to pass a plant facilities levy that would provide $1 million a year to the district for 10 years; that money, Superintendent Matt Handelman said, would be used for building maintenance and providing extra academic materials for the district’s increasing student population.

• Seek and, according to Heringer, likely pass a $30 million bond next spring to be repaid over 15 years;

• Seek another $20 million bond in spring 2023 to be repaid over 15 years.

"What we have to do as a school system is demonstrate our needs and show the community that what we're asking for is a need, not a want," Handelman said. "Now we have to figure out if we want to run (a bond and/or levies), when to run it, and for how much."

At this stage district officials are simply looking at options. The district will conduct a board workshop Oct. 24 on levy and bond options that could bring them closer to a decision. The workshop begins at 5 p.m. at the district’s Midtown Center, 1505 N. Fifth St.