POST FALLS — Massive population growth for the city means more students with educational needs. For Post Falls School District, it means a dire need for new schools.

The big question is how to pay for them.

Dena Naccarato, Post Falls superintendent of schools, explained the district’s pressing needs Tuesday to the Post Falls Chamber of Commerce.

The district needs a new high school, third middle school, eighth elementary school, food service distribution center, office for the internet technology department and a facility to house the maintenance department.

These necessary improvements come with hefty price tags. And public school funding for these projects is both “really complex” and inadequate, Naccarato said.

“In 1998, when we built Post Falls High School, that school cost $18 million,” Naccarato said. “It’s 225,000 square feet. To build a ‘starter high school’ which will not be 225,000 square feet, the cost is $55 million.”

Idaho’s funding formula is like no other state around us, Naccarato said. Eighty percent of public school funding is derived from state funding, 10% comes from local taxes, and 10% comes from federal funding.

“That federal funding comes with strings attached,” Naccarato said. “The money that we get from the feds has to be spent on certain things.”

For example, special education programs are “somewhat” funded by federal dollars.

“I say somewhat because the money doesn’t begin to cover the needs we experience in our Special Service division,” Naccarato said.

The needs of the district exceed available funding, she said. Even though the vast majority of the 80% provided by the state goes to salaries and benefits, teachers and staff are still underpaid.

Post Falls teachers are paid an average of $55,991 annually. The state funds about $49,808 per teacher. That leaves the district short by about $6,000 per teacher, or $1.4 million annually.

There's also the classified staff to consider, including paraprofessionals, office and clerical staff, custodians and bus drivers, Naccarato said. The district received notification from the state that it qualifies for 117 classified staff members, making $23,231 per year. The district employs about 300, Naccarato said.

To make those numbers work, most classified staff are part time so the district can make the money go as far as possible, she said.

“The other thing that you should understand is that in the 2021 school year, our starting wage for classified personnel was $10.68 an hour,” Naccarato said. “So I asked our school board to approve an over 20% raise for our lowest paid personnel. That raised the starting wage to $12.68 an hour.

“I think all of you have driven around town. You’ve seen that McDonald’s is hiring for $15 an hour. The Metro Carwash is hiring for $16 an hour. It’s impossible for public schools in Idaho to compete with fast food wages with the way this funding mechanism for our classified personnel works.”

Up until two years ago, funding was calculated based on attendance. When COVID hit, the rules changed. Funding is now based on enrollment. In a district the size of Post Falls, a 95% attendance rate is expected, Naccarato said.

“Not every student is in their seat every single day. However, we still need a desk for them, books for them, and we still have to turn the lights on,” Naccarato said. “So this move to enrollment has actually been a very good thing for most districts in Idaho.”

The district determines how many students will need teachers. The teachers and certified staff then become what the district calls “support units,” Naccarato said.

“That support unit goes into another funding mechanism to give us discretionary funding,” Naccarato said. “You’re going to hear me say that discretionary money is not discretionary.”

Discretionary spending is used to cover expenses like the electric bill and the water bill, not other expenses, Naccarato said.

Naccarato recalled 2008, when serving as principal of Post Falls High School. A snowstorm dropped 3 feet within a 24-hour period. The electric bill for about 13 days of school that month was $45,000. And that was only one of Post Falls’ 11 school buildings, she said.

Another big expense is transportation. State funding covers 85% of those costs, while the district provides the other 15%. The cost of each school bus is about $100,000, and special needs buses can run up to $130,000.

School nurses, curriculum, technology, half of the cost for school resource officers, part of the KTEC program, facilities maintenance, extracurricular activities like athletics and new schools are all paid for by supplemental school levies, Naccarato said.

To put those costs in perspective, curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade, across the district, is about $500,000.

Naccarato addressed “gaps in state funding.” In 2006 the Idaho Legislature decided that people needed property tax relief, she said. At the time, school funding relied on property taxes.

To make up for the decrease in property tax revenue, the state enacted a one-cent sales tax that went toward public school funding. That sales tax allotment didn't cover the money lost to school districts, Naccarato said.

“In essence what happened was school funding was cut by over 30%,” she said. “And then of course the recession happened.”

This change caused Idaho schools to depend on supplemental or fundamental levies, Naccarato said.

Levies are passed by a simple majority vote and they are renewable every two years. Levy funds can be spent at the discretion of the district, Naccarato said.

“After you’ve seen our slides, you know how the Post Falls School District spends their money,” Naccarato said. “We spend it on our people.”

Bond levies are a different situation, and can be used only to build new or to remodel existing buildings. Idaho is one of only two states that require a supermajority of 66 and two-thirds percent of votes to pass.

“Idaho does not match funds of any kind to build buildings. It is 100% on the taxpayer to make that happen,” she said.

A study done by the Office of Performance Evaluation on how the funding of Idaho’s school buildings was working concluded that 77 of the 115 Idaho school districts were operating from buildings that are in “fair or poor shape,” Naccarato said. It was estimated that it would cost $847 million to bring Idaho’s school buildings up to good condition.

“It is the hope of many superintendents in our state that the Legislature will start to look at whether or not being reliant on bonds to build buildings is really in the best interest of our children in the future,” she said.

The Post Falls district has been very fiscally conservative, Naccarato said. The district’s supplemental levy is $4.955 million a year for two years. Coeur d’Alene School District’s levy is $20 million a year for two years. Lakeland Joint School District’s is $9.5 million a year, for two years.

“We’re spending about $1,300 per student,” Naccarato said. “You’re getting a great bang for your buck in Post Falls. We continue to do a lot with very little.”