T.F. School District Reminds Voters about Tuesday Elections

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KLIX) – Officials with the Twin Falls School District are looking forward to residents getting out and voting on Tuesday.

The district is proposing an $8.5 million supplemental levy to help with the district’s operation costs over the next two years. If passed, it will replace an existing supplemental levy that expires on June 30. The new proposal is $500,000 less than the current $9 million supplemental levy passed by voters in 2015.

The district has presented presentation about the proposal to around 50 community groups since January, said Superintendent Wiley Dobbs.

In December the district’s Budget Advisory Committee suggested to the Board of Directors that it pursue the levy, determining that maintaining the existing levy rate would not put an additional burden on taxpayers and allow the district to continue offering the same services.

Dobbs said at a public meeting in February at Pillar Falls Elementary School that there are a couple of reasons the proposal has been reduced from the 2015 levy amount.

“We wanted to make sure the community knew we appreciated them,” he said, noting that voters also passed two-year levies in 2011 and 2013. Also, as the district receives more money from the state, the board backs off on what it asks of voters. “The state is moving more funding this way.”

Dobbs told News Radio 1310 last Thursday that average voter turnout in previous elections has been about 20 percent. He said the district has done its part in mailing information to residents and holding public meetings. Now it’s up to residents to do their part by showing up at the ballot box.

He often has been asked by people, after the district’s effort to inform the public and availability to answer questions, if low turnout at the polls bother him as a superintendent.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me as a superintendent. It bothers me as an American.”

In the county, the Hansen School District and Murtaugh Joint School District also are proposing levies on Tuesday. Hansen is asking for a two-year $580,000 ($290,000 each year) supplemental levy, and Murtaugh is asking voters to give a nod for a 10-year $175,000 plant facilities reserve fund levy.