The vote was unanimous to hold an elementary technology levy and an 8-1 vote to run a high school general fund levy.

In the last levy election held in October, voters rejected four safety and technology levy requests for the elementary district and high school district. A levy of any type hasn’t passed in the high school district, which includes voters in 13 outlying partner school districts, since 2007.

[Trustee Lloyd Bondy] also agreed the district should get into the routine of asking for incremental levy amounts versus larger amounts on an “as-needed basis,” which has been the district’s past philosophy and previous administrators and trustees have tried to move away from.

While trustees speculated why the people have rejected levies — longtime Trustee Jack Fallon, who provided some brief insight into past levy discussions, provided a few reasons.

“One, they don’t trust the government, which they consider us to be government. Second, they don’t want their taxes to be raised. Period. It’s that simple,” Fallon said. “The third reason would be that they don’t believe that their children’s education is any better than it was when they were in school themselves. Then you have the large part of the taxpayers that have no children.”

“There’s a disconnect between what the community that's the funding mechanism for schools, which is the reality that levies need to be requested every year to keep schools fully funded,” [Assistant Superintendent Matt Jensen] added. “It's not, ‘We passed the levy now we're done.’ Every year that request diminishes and you have to re-ask every year to be fully funded. That major point around levies I think is lost on most people,” Jensen said.

Factoring into budget discussions or potential cuts will be any pay raises. It is a contract negotiation year for the Kalispell Education Association, whose members include certified staff — mainly teachers — in addition to custodians and maintenance/grounds employees. The union contracts expire June 30.

Daily Inter Lake: Kalispell Public Schools levies on tap for May election