POCATELLO — As costs at the gas pump and grocery checkout continue to hit families in the pocketbooks, the Pocatello-Chubbuck School District’s Board of Trustees recently approved three measures meant to save money for local taxpayers.

The moves come on the heels of concerns raised by some throughout Idaho that the state’s school districts are sitting on a large amount of cash reserves and don’t need additional financial help from the traditional supplemental levies they ask voters to approve.

School District 25, which has $30 million in reserve, has such a levy that it will ask voters to renew next year.

To help local residents cope with inflation and the high cost of fuel, the School District 25 board recently decided to forgo increases on that levy and two others.

The Pocatello-Chubbuck school board voted this month to forego the annual 5 percent increase for the school plant facilities levy for the 2022-23 school year, approved reducing the second year of the two-year supplemental levy tax request by $2 million and passed a motion to maintain the tort levy at the fixed value of $229,370.

The moves, passed unanimously by the school board, will provide local taxpayers with nearly $2.4 million in property tax relief, according to School District 25 officials.

“In the unanimous vote, the Board of Trustees and administration agreed that our driving goal has been to find a way to pay it forward by providing relief to local taxpayers that have generously supported the district’s levies for more than 60 years,” said School District 25 Superintendent Douglas Howell. “We recognized an opportunity to undertake this significant reduction at a time when families may be facing economic challenges due to inflation and increasing costs at the gas pump. It is also imperative for the district to balance this approach somewhat conservatively in consideration of the unpredictability of today’s economy and the resulting impact over the next several years.”

Jonathan Balls, the School District 25 director of business operations, said local voters last approved the school plant facility levy in 2020. The levy lasts 10 years and includes an annual 5 percent increase, of which declining to take that increase this year was one of the district’s cost-saving measures. Balls said the school board has not yet made any decisions on whether or not to take the 5 percent increase in subsequent years.

The supplemental levy was last passed by district voters in 2021 with a price tag of $9.25 million per year for the next two years, funded via property taxes. The school board approved reducing that ask by $2 million for the 2022-23 school year.

“The reason I supported these decisions was because we were able to receive funds during the COVID pandemic and because everyone is suffering from inflation and the cost of gas (and) I felt it was important not to take the extra money,” said School District 25 board member Deanna Judy. “I don’t think everyone could foresee that we were going to be in the position we are in right now. People are suffering right now and we wanted to get them some help.”

The supplemental levy helps fund district expenses, primarily employee wages and benefits, but also covers investments in school security, daily operations, academic programs, athletic programs, fine arts instruction, textbooks, instructional supplies, utilities, insurance premiums and investments in remote learning, said Balls.

“For last fiscal year, 89 of 117, or about 76 percent, of school districts in Idaho ran supplemental levies totaling over $218 million,” Balls said. “That excludes charters because they don’t have taxing authority. But this report goes back to 1993 and back then there were only 47 school districts that had levies and now there’s nearly twice that amount.”

Balls said the supplemental levy covered 10.86 percent of School District 25’s budget during the 2021-2022 school year, adding that about 88 percent of the district’s general funds are used to support employee wages and benefits.

The Pocatello-Chubbuck School District is the state’s fifth largest district. Last year the district boasted a graduation rate of 91 percent, higher than both the state average of 80.1 percent and the national average of 85.3 percent, said School District 25 spokesperson Courtney Fisher.

She added that 1,570 of the district’s graduates last year combined to complete 6,221 college dual enrollment or advanced placement credits.

However, not everyone is of the belief that School District 25 needs multi-million dollar levies to function. There are claims circulating that many school districts in Idaho are ripe with unspent cash flows.

A recent article published in the conservative news outlet Action Idaho says School District 25 has a $30 million reserve fund. The article states that “continuing to pour public money into school districts flush with reserve cash is folly.”

Action Idaho’s article showed that while School District 25’s reserves were much higher than many other districts in the state, the Boise, West Ada, Nampa and Bonneville school districts had the most money in reserve.

Balls confirmed that School District 25 has about $30 million in reserve but indicated much of that money is earmarked for specific causes such as deferred maintenance, capital improvement projects and emergency operation funds.

“It’s smattered over 12 different funds and I would say the majority is reserves,” Balls said. “The biggest balance is obviously the general fund and the second biggest is our capital improvement or plant facility fund.”

Balls said that the $30 million figure also includes about $1 million dedicated for food services. Balls added that the district voted to not increase the cost of lunch and breakfast for students this year.

In terms of emergency operating funds, the State Board of Education requires a reserve fund minimum of 5 percent of operating expenditures. Additionally, the Government Finance Officers Association recommends “at a minimum that general-purpose governments, regardless of size, maintain unrestricted fund balance in their general fund of no less than two months of regular general fund operating revenues or regular general fund operating expenditures.” Also known as a rainy day fund, the district has to carry a specific amount of emergency funds during unexpected deficit periods such as a recession, something that many economists fear is looming with the current economy.

The Pocatello-Chubbuck school board’s decision to cut back on its levy tax ask occurred at a time when consumer prices are soaring. Grocery prices have experienced the most sharp price increase since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” was released in 1979 with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for August reporting the overall cost of groceries was up 13.5 percent compared to last year, according to Yahoo Finance. Fuel prices may have fallen nationally, but such is not the case in East Idaho, which is still experiencing gas prices that are nearly $1 more expensive than the national average, according to figures from AAA.

“There is still the threat of a possible recession,” Howell said. “Some people say we’re in the middle of it, others say we haven’t started yet but we’re just preparing for the unknown. When we came out of that last one (in 2008), we were reducing budgets by upwards of 10 percent in some areas or higher and a reduction in staff. A dollar today is not the same as a dollar was three years ago, so we’re trying to be prepared for our future, provide some breaks along the way and pay it forward as we’ve received it.”