Proactive actions lower bond amount for Valley View Elementary

By Laura Roady

How does a school district lower property owner’s taxes? By being proactive instead of reactive. For example, replacing a roof during the summer instead of after it collapses under a big snow load in winter. Having a plan. A ten-year plan. A preventive maintenance plan.

And outside funding that doesn’t entirely rely on the local taxpayer base. This comes in the form of grants and extra state funding.

Over the last several years, Boundary County School District (BCSD) has received over $2 million in grants and $3.5 million in Federal funding for projects at all the schools. They have been vocal at the State level and helped secure $5.3 million of State funding towards Valley View Elementary.

BCSD has a strict budget, a list of maintenance tasks and large projects just like households and businesses—but the funding mainly comes from the state of Idaho and taxpayers.

“We’ve been great stewards of the funding we have,” said Teresa Rae, second term BCSD School Board Trustee. “We’re very good at writing grants and getting grants.”

Voters will notice this difference on the ballot in November. BCSD has ran a bond to rebuild Valley View Elementary twice at $16.4 million but it failed to pass the 66.66 percent super-majority vote. Through vigorous grant writing and new funding from the State level, the proposed bond has been reduced to $10.5 million dollars over 20 years.

On the ballot, the bond equates to $32 per $100,000 assessed residential value. However, BCSD is not allowed to mention HB 292 and HB 521 on the ballot—these new Idaho laws will lower that bond rate as long as the laws are in existence.

HB 292 and HB 521 will provide the school district approximately $680,000 each year towards the bond, if the legislature continues these tax cuts. BCSD will pass on that savings to taxpayers by only taxing $4 per $100,000 assessed residential value each year when property taxes are due. This means reduced taxes for property owners.

With that reduction (not stated on the ballot), a homeowner with $300,000 assessed residential value would pay $12 a year for a new Valley View Elementary.

For perspective, the bond for Bonners Ferry High School that recently ended was $60 per $100,000 assessed value. For homeowners with a $300,000 residential value, that equated to $180 per year. Therefore, the new bond would be lower than the previous bond.

If the bond passes in November, construction could begin as early as the summer of 2025 and students could potentially start there in September of 2026, according to Rae.

“We’ve found grants for many projects but there is no grant for building a new school,” Rae said. “We cannot get at our number one priority [of replacing Valley View].”

BCSD needs to run the bond at least two times in a two year period of time before going to the State of Idaho to ask for assistance. Then the State can either deny the request, recommend repairs, or build a new school of its choice. Rae noted that the State could build a new school different from the district’s plan and then establish a plant facility tax on the county taxpayers. That tax would be at a rate three times the bond rate because of the higher interest rate and shorter time frame, stated Rae.

“There would be taxes either way,” said Jan Bayer, BCSD Superintendent. “If we choose to build a school [with the bond], we get a choice [of the school].”

If the bond doesn’t pass in November, BCSD can run the bond again in May.

“Look, we have aging facilities,” Rae said.

To gain community input on the school district’s buildings, Bayer rebuilt the BCSD Facilities Committee in 2020 after a smaller start in 2014.

“I tried to get a huge cross-section to represent all of the community,” Bayer said. “Some were supporters [of the bond] and some not.”

Committee members brought input and insight from diverse backgrounds that included business owners, plant managers, real estate, farming, homeschooling, investing, Tribal, government, and electrical backgrounds.

In 2020, the committee toured every building in the district to see first-hand the problems and area for improvements.

“The key to understanding the facilities were the three plant managers: Chris Pease at Idaho Forest Group; Clark Fairchild, owner of North Idaho Energy Logs; and Ryan Comer, plant manager at Alta,” said Merle Ansley, a BCSD Facilities Committee member. “They know how to maintain facilities cost-effectively and what should be replaced.”

After touring the buildings and asking numerous questions, the committee discussed the projects that should be done over the next 10 years. Those discussions included closing an outlying elementary school and the answer was no because there isn’t room at Valley View Elementary to absorb the students and the committee wanted parents to have a choice of elementary schools, Rae commented.

“We saw that we needed to replace Valley View…it was in the worse condition,” Ansley said. “We didn’t want anything to be on a catastrophic level. Instead we wanted routine maintenance and a manageable schedule, so over time we could stomach the costs.”

The committee prioritized the projects and presented them to the school board, which approved the plan.

“We were able to use the funds wisely,” Bayer said of the funds they received. “Almost a million dollars at Mt. Hall Elementary and almost two million dollars at Naples Elementary.”

Since 2014, a large investment has been made at the middle school that included energy efficient windows and new flooring to replace the asbestos flooring.

“A lot of money went into the middle school,” Rae said. “We need to keep the middle school alive until the bond for Valley View is done.”

Every year most of the flooring in the district has to be waxed in the summer. Rae advocated for different flooring that didn’t need to be waxed which will save money and time every year.

“Having the plan in place and the group, saved [BCSD] almost seven million dollars,” Ansley said. “Teresa has been a driver to find money and to get things upgraded. It’s amazing what has been done in the last five to six years. All the projects on the original 10-year plan [except Valley View Elementary] were completed in three years by being ready when funds became available.”

“I attribute our success to the committee, the school board supporting our plans, because of the community input, and everyone willing to step up. It is their community and they want to be proud of it,” Bayer said. “Public schools are the heartbeat of a small town.”

“The biggest thing is safety,” Rae said. “Then energy efficiency.”

Valley View Elementary was built in 1948 with cinder blocks disassembled from the Naval training center at Farragut. Those cinder blocks were reassembled without rebar reinforcements, noted Rae. The cinder block walls have no insulation, so Valley View Elementary has an insulation rating of R2.

The building is grandfathered-in for seismic load, Rae mentioned. Not that many earthquakes shake Boundary County, but trains rumble by every day, shaking the building every time because of the sandy ground.

Heating bills are astronomical between the lack of insulation and old windows.

A big concern of Rae is safety because Valley View has a separate kindergarten building across the street and exterior hallways. She stated that the library is a temporary building and there are other 50-year-old temporary buildings too.

“The collapsing of the roof is a huge concern,” Rae said. “The plumbing is a ticking time-bomb. All the bathrooms backed up a few years ago. We know we have cracks in the plumbing … we can’t just fix them because plumbing is just one part of the problem.”

Mount Hall Elementary was built at the same time as Valley View Elementary. Mount Hall had a plumbing problem that required the hallways to be excavated because the plumbing was underneath. What contractors found was raw sewage underneath the school and that same problem could be at Valley View, Rae commented.

Bayer is concerned that if something catastrophic happens, that hopefully students or staff will not be hurt or killed. She has been thinking of what to do if, for say, the roof collapses in the middle of winter—bring in temporary buildings or double-shift like back in the 1990’s—because the other two elementary schools cannot absorb all of the students from

Valley View Elementary.

“We are trying to be proactive, before something catastrophic happens,” Rae said. “We want to build it on our own time, and not be rushed and interrupt learning.”

“The new Valley View Elementary would be on one side of the road and in one building,” Bayer said. “We know what is going to be smart. We are going to get a good product. This is a community effort to come together on what is best for schools.”

Bayer and Rae are already looking into ways to save more money on building Valley View Elementary.

Rae said if the district piggybacks on an already built plan of an elementary school and makes tweaks instead of starting a plan from scratch, then the architectural fees could be reduced by half-a-million dollars.

“It will look nice, be functional and last 80 to 100 years,” Rae said. “It will not be a Taj Mahal. It will be energy efficient, up-to-date, and not cost tax payers a lot of money.”

BCSD has a commitment from a local contractor who volunteered to complete the demolition for free. The district will need to cover some expenses, but the commitment could save the district about half-a-million dollars, according to Rae.

Once the bond is approved by taxpayers, then Rae and Bayer will look for grants for pieces of Valley View Elementary (a stipulation of some grants is to have the bond in place). Rae mentioned they would apply for a grant for kitchen equipment that is available.

Rae wants taxpayers to know that any money saved on building Valley View will be passed on to the taxpayers, by lowering the bond amount and saving on interest. However, they need to run the bond at the full amount initially because the savings aren’t guaranteed.

“We have shifted from being reactive to proactive,” Bayer said. “We are seeking funding. We want to be transparent with

the community.”

When planning for the new Valley View Elementary, Rae said they want local contractors to be able to work on and fix everything. They want local contractors to build the building, which means the bond needs to pass and not have the State build the school, Bayer said.

“We like our local contractors,” Rae said. “Ninety percent of our jobs are done by local contractors. We want local people to be able to respond quickly. They take pride in it.”

Rae mentioned that when Valley View Elementary had backed-up sewage before school one morning, KG&T Septic was there within ten minutes of the phone call.

“We can’t get our number one priority done because of the [super-majority] 66.66 percent vote,” Rae said. “We are fighting for this change at the State level. The State level knows us by name. We are direct at getting the message across.”

Both Rae and Bayer are vocal advocates for school districts and have testified before the Senate and House relating to funding and bond voting.

“It is not right to have no insulation in a facility kids go to, it’s not right to shovel the roof,” Rae said. “The State hasn’t condemned the building [Valley View]. I can’t believe it.”

“I like the idea of how involved the community is in our public school system,” Ansley said. “The buildings are not just for kids going to school but for the community.”

Numerous groups and organizations utilize the school buildings during non-school hours, including church groups, drama clubs, sports groups, pickleball players, homeschool groups, Civil Air Patrol, Border Patrol and more.

“The community needs to understand you have a Superintendent who is managing funds in the best way possible,” Ansley said. “She cares at the end of the day what the outcome is. She was born and raised here.”

“The Board and Superintendent are taxpayers too,” Rae said. “We look at it through the taxpayers lens.”

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5. If you have any questions, you can contact Superintendent Jan Bayer at (208) 267-3146.

A few grants received by BCSD have included:

• Newly Awarded Shop Expansion – Bonners Ferry High School $1,500,000
• New Dust Collector – Bonners Ferry High School $249,237
• Safety Grant – Bonners Ferry High School $20,000
• Art Grant – BFHS $15,000
• New Intercom & Safety System – Boundary County Middle School $118,743
• Safety Grant – Boundary County Middle School $19,999
• Library Grant – BCMS  $5,000
• Safety Grant – Mount Hall Elementary $18,909
• Safety Grant – Naples Elementary $19,902
• Art Grant – Naples Elementary $14,600
• Safety Grant – Valley View Elementary $21,190
• Classroom Wishlist from Idaho Lottery – Valley View $3,000+
• *SRO Grant Award – 3 years $300,000