Oregon Public Broadcasting

State lawmakers across the Northwest are grappling with how to pay for schools in the midst of an economic crisis.

In Idaho, K-12 education faces both short and long-term challenges.

Governor Butch Otter has ordered a more than five-percent reduction next year. But Idaho lawmakers are also reviewing deeper questions about how they fund education. Inland Northwest correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

When the housing market tanked, so did the economy of Priest River, a town in the Idaho Panhandle. Its main employer, a sawmill, closed last year.

That's had a ripple effect on schools. So much so that West Bonner County Superintendent Mike McGuire is wondering how heíll balance his school districtís next budget.

Mike McGuire: "We already were, I think, running a conservative operation here. But it will be painfully more conservative, starting next fall."

McGuire says, because of the economic conditions, families have been leaving this part of north Idaho. Classrooms are thinning out in the district's six schools. And because the state pays districts based on the number of students who attend class, that means the money is thinning out too.

Mike McGuire: "We don't want to cut so far that we become dysfunctional. So we believe itís our responsibility to cut as far as possible, still maintain the integrity of the classroom and keep the heat and the lights on and keep the buses running."

An hour to the south, the superintendent of the school district in Post Falls sees the same economic storm clouds.

The Post Falls economy is in decent shape compared to Priest River. Still, Jerry Keane says it's inevitable that he and his school board will have to make painful decisions for next fall.

Jerry Keane: "Ultimately I think it will come down to will we have a reduction in staff or a reduction in salaries or a combination of both? I think those are both yet to be determined."

Right now, Keane is asking Idaho School Superintendent Tom Luna for some relief.

Idaho requires school districts to set aside two percent of their budgets for capital and maintenance projects. Keane wants Luna to waive that rule.

Jerry Keane: "We might be able to defer or postpone maintenance projects until such time as we're able to be a little more fiscally solvent. You know, I would compare this to you need a new roof at home. Can you wait another year to do it?"

Keane says that one little change would give Post Falls an extra million dollars to cover other needs next year.

That's a short-term solution that Luna is negotiating with lawmakers in Boise. They're knee deep in writing the stateís next budget.

But legislators are also wading into the issue of long-term education funding.

Senator Shawn Keough, who represents Idaho's two northernmost counties, says the state's school funding formula is 15 years old and badly needs a rewrite.

Shawn Keough: "We have much more widespread use of computers in the classroom and we've got the onset of No Child Left Behind and testing requirements from the state that weren't in place then."

Keough was part of a legislative committee that ordered a study last year of Idaho's school funding formula.

It concludes that the state doesn't need to spend more money to improve student performance. But state Senate Education Chair John Goedde of Coeur d'Alene says Idaho does need to work on a challenge that all Northwest states face.

John Goedde: "The greatest inequity that we have in the state is still with students in the small rural schools."

Those schools don't often have the tax base to provide enough local funding. They require more money from the state so that students there can get the same level of education as students in cities.

Goedde expects equity will be the hot topic as lawmakers work this year on how the state pays for schools.

Whether that will eventually provide more money for rural school districts like the one in Priest River isn't clear yet.

It certainly won't provide any help this year, leaving Superintendent Mike McGuire to ponder moves he considers drastic: a four-day week, as some Idaho districts have already done, or eliminate sports programs.

Mike McGuire: "Or possibly place a 'help-us-through-this-emergency year' levy before our voters."

McGuire says all options are on the table and none of them are good.