Voters from the Lake Pend Oreille School District voted strongly against a $55 million facilities levy last Tuesday. A total of 7,038 people voted Aug. 30, with 65 percent voting against it. Click on the yellow markers to see how each precinct voted in our interactive map.

Voters from the Lake Pend Oreille School District voted strongly against a $55 million facilities levy last Tuesday.

A total of 7,038 people voted Aug. 30. Thirty-five percent voted to pass the levy while 65 percent voted against it.

“Always when you put something up in front of somebody you expect for it to pass; you absolutely expect for it to pass,” District Superintendent Shawn Woodward said.

A recent physical condition assessment by Teater Consulting reported that Sandpoint Middle School and Lake Pend Oreille Alternative High School are both unsatisfactory learning environments. Without this levy’s funding the plans to replace both those facilities will be put on hold, as well as plans to replace elementary schools in the district.

“I think that for some people the amount was just too high, and there are a lot of people that prefer, even though the buildings are not in good shape, that there’s a smaller scale of projects,” Woodward said. “While that would prolong the time it will take to upgrade the facilities, I think it was a much easier number to digest and be OK with.”

A supplemental levy that accounts for one-third of LPOSD’s operational funds goes to vote in March, but Woodward doesn’t believe the failure of the facilities levy will affect that vote.

“I strongly believe that people understand the difference between those two, one being for building and one for operations, and the last time around we had the highest percentage passing ever at almost 70 percent,” Woodward said. “I definitely do not believe it will impact that negatively at all.”

While the failure of the facilities levy is discouraging  to district officials, Woodward is appreciative of all the effort supporters put into bringing together a plan to put forward to the public.

“It was great to see people rallying around this effort to improve our facilities and at the end of the day we know we just have to do something differently so we can get different results,” he said.