PRIEST RIVER — The failure of the West Bonner County School District’s proposed levy with only 46.26% of voters supporting the measure came as an unpleasant surprise for officials at the school district Tuesday night.

As of Wednesday morning, the district office had already fielded multiple calls from teachers, including several new teachers, asking if they would have a job in the next school year, said business manager Jennifer Anselmo.

“The answer is we don’t know,” she said. “If you have to cut $3.5 million from your budget, you’re losing teachers and you’re losing classified staff.”

The levy accounts for around 25% of the district budget. Without it, WBCSD will need to try and pass it again, or make severe budget cuts.

The last time a levy failed, in 2019, the district lost around 15 teachers who moved on because of a lack of job security, Anselmo said.

Even though that levy eventually passed, it meant the district had to spend time and resources to hire more instructors.

“I think it’s more indirect costs,” Anselmo said. “[It affects] our morale, our community, our students.”

The levy’s failure came as a surprise, Anselmo said — it seemed there had been a rigorous campaign in support of the levy, and she hadn’t noted any more vocal opposition than usual.

“We felt like we did our best to get the information out about exactly what we were asking for and why,” she said.

While the district gets roughly the same 900 or so no votes for every proposed levy, this year was different in that the district saw fewer yes votes than they expected. Why that happened, she said, they’re still trying to puzzle out.

Another befuddling challenge for the district is that unlike in 2019, Tuesday’s levy did not have a permanency clause, nor did it have an increased mill rate. The proposed levy cost the same $1.47 per $1,000 of assessed property value as it had the last time it passed.

In 2019, the levy was successfully run a second time after removing its permanency clause. This time, it’s unclear what steps the district would need to take to win over enough voters.

The board, which will hold a special meeting for the levy Thursday at 6 p.m., must now decide if they will attempt to run the levy again in May. If they do, trustees may be re-evaluating the district’s funds to see if there are any areas the budget may be cut.