County, school to share $2M
The check is in.
As promised, $2.2 million earmarked for Boundary County in last year’s $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks has been received, county clerk Glenda Poston reported on Tuesday.
Of that, $1.5 million will go to Boundary County Road and Bridge Department. The $667,597 balance will go to Boundary County School District.
When federal lawmakers approved the bailout, part of the package included reinstating federal funding that county government and the school district expected to lose. It’s funding the county gets because it cannot collect property taxes from the 475,000 acres of federal lands here.
The bailout restored the funding and increased it by 75 percent for both entities.
The road and bridge department will receive an extra $667,000 over its traditional $900,000 allocation, said superintendent Jeff Gutshall. The total allocation will be reduced annually over the next four years.
Most of the heavy equipment is in good shape, so some of the money will be used to buy a couple of new dump-snowplow trucks valued at $100,000 each, he said.
Because the price of oil is lower right now, the county plans to ramp up its program for chip-sealing roads. Roads that will be sealed and chipped this year have yet to be named.
“We’re (also) going to put it basically to materials because there’s some deflation in the economy and we can get a (good) buy,” Gutshall said. “We want to make sure we come out of this with a lot of late model equipment sitting on the line and are going to obligations ahead. We want to come out of this pretty much debt free with new equipment.”
The school district will use its $667,597 for maintaining buildings and transportation, including possibly buying school buses, said superintendent Dr. Don Bartling.
The money, however, cannot be spent on items supported by a maintenance and operation levy, which voters will be asked to renew on March 24.
School officials are asking for voters to approve generated property taxes totaling $865,000.
By approving the levy, the school district will use the money for student extra-curricular activities, personnel, text books, supplies, materials and testing.
School officials have already decided to eliminate three teaching jobs for next year.
If the levy does not go through, the district’s budget would need to be cut by $865,000. Things that could be cut could include $318,000 for extra-curricular student activities and $283,000 for personnel. Text books and technology also could be cut.