School district requests $405,000

A recent lawsuit settlement with the state Legislature has proved a boon to local public school budgets just before school elections.

Many local schools received between $20,000 and $25,000 in the settlement between the state and the Montana Quality Education Coalition. The amount was enough to allow some local school districts to cancel levy requests or reduce the amount they will ask voters to approve.

Absentee ballots for the May 8 election are available as of last Wednesday.

Most of the county’s districts are not asking voters to approve levies, but a handful are asking taxpayers to help them balance their budgets.

The Lakeside/Somers, Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, and Olney-Bissell school districts are requesting general-fund levies. General-fund levies provide money for operating schools, such as purchasing textbooks and teaching materials, and paying teachers’ salaries.

Kalispell Public Schools is also requesting a building reserve and technology levy, which is specifically for facility maintenance and repair and improvements in educational technology. This is a high school levy, which means voters in elementary districts whose students attend Flathead or Glacier high school have a say in the levy’s passage.

In addition to levy requests, some school districts will hold trustee elections. Lakeside/Somers is among those districts.

Several trustee elections have been canceled. When the same number of candidates file as there are open seats on the school board, those candidates are elected by acclamation, and districts do not need to hold elections.

Somers-Lakeside

General-fund levy request: $405,000. Cost to taxpayers: $26.61 a year on a home with a $100,000 assessed value, or $53.23 on a $200,000 home.

Trustee election is for two three-year terms. Incumbent Dave Alexander, Samuel Bagley, John Hollensteiner and Stephen Naso are the candidates.

Voters in this district may vote on Kalispell’s building reserve levy.

Kalispell

Elementary general-fund levy request: $211,500. Cost to taxpayers: $5.83 a year on a home with a $100,000 assessed value, or $11.65 for a $200,000 home.

High school building reserve request: $4,127,915. Cost to taxpayers: $10.20 a year on a home with an assessed value of $100,000, or $20.41 on a $200,000 home.

Trustee election will be for one three-year term on a high school district seat representing the Cayuse Prairie, Creston, Deer Park, and Fair-Mont-Egan elementary districts. Joe Brenneman and incumbent Ivan Lorentzen are the candidates.

Trustees elected by acclamation: incumbent Mary Ruby, Don Murray and David Schultz.