Multiple court cases, including an Idaho Supreme Court decision in 2005, have ruled Idaho’s funding of public schools, especially related to facilities, is inadequate. Idaho’s at- or near-bottom ranking in per-pupil spending and other education spending benchmarks is well documented. But perhaps the best evidence is the hundreds of millions of dollars in basic business costs Idaho school districts are forced to ask local taxpayers to approve each year above and beyond their state and federal appropriations. In 2022 alone, Idaho voters saw more than $1 billion in bond measures and special levies on local ballots to help school districts educate our children.

Nothing, if those needs are unexpected or beyond the scope of typical fundamental expenses for offering a quality education — the true purpose of bonds and levies. Instead, bonds and levies have become a regular, if unreliable, revenue stream for school districts. Recent ballot measures asked taxpayers to pay for new buildings in fast-growing districts, salaries and benefi ts for paraprofessionals, and buying and maintaining school buses. When voters reject such fundamental expenses, it creates an increasingly unequal dynamic of “haves” and “have-nots” among districts.

It’s significant. The ability to reach the two-thirds supermajority ballot box requirement on bond measures for school facilities is a very difficult, if not impossible, threshold for many districts. When ballot measures fail with voters,
district administrators are often forced to sacrifice classroom investments for the sake of serviceable buildings or other fundamental operational costs. A 2022 audit by the Idaho Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations found that “the current two-thirds vote threshold poses a significant barrier to bond approval.”

As a starting place, the Idaho Constitution outlines the minimum standards that Idaho’s education funding must meet. The Idaho Legislature is not meeting its constitutional obligations. Beyond meeting the minimum constitutional standard, Idaho taxpayers deserve to have their voices heard in the Idaho Legislature. Right now, they overwhelmingly demand more public education funding, stronger schools, better-paid staff, and additional student services. Public education is “fully funded” when the educational outcomes public schools deliver meet the standards taxpayers demand.

When school districts are forced to ask voters to pay such basic expenses, often unsuccessfully, real investment in student success, like building up badly needed mental health services for students or investing in our dedicated educators, becomes close to impossible.