North Idaho business leaders spent Tuesday morning getting schooled on Idaho’s K-12 funding formula by state superintendent Debbie Critchfield.
Critchfield joined Post Falls, Lakeland, and Coeur d’Alene superintendents to discuss “How Idaho public schools are funded and why it matters” at a Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
“The way we’re funding does not align to the needs of the modern system,” Critchfield told nearly 200 attendees.
Rewriting the funding formula is Critchfield’s key ask ahead of the 2027 legislative session. The formula is largely based on 1960s rules, with the most recent significant rewrite dating back to 1994.
“This is something we must do,” Critchfield said.
Modern needs like technology and career technical education aren’t accounted for in the formula, she noted. And growing trends like virtual and charter schools receive funding for services they might not provide, such as transportation, she said.
“There’s no flexibility in there,” Critchfield said.
The formula is also confusing, she said after trying to explain what a support unit is.
“We need to get to a place where … the funding is simple and understandable,” Critchfield said.
She ended her 20-minute speech by asking attendees to contact their legislators and voice support for coming to the table to discuss a formula rewrite in the new year.
Critchfield wasn’t alone in urging business leaders to contact their legislators.
Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Shon Hocker proposed a four-year supplemental levy term, which he said would help with voter fatigue. The proposal passed the Senate two years ago but didn’t get a hearing in the House. Then last year, it again was ignored by the House. Hocker and the Idaho School Boards Association plan to try again in January.
Post Falls Superintendent Anna Wilson said her district could buy a new car every two days with the funds it loses due to Idaho’s average daily attendance funding model. Lakeland Superintendent Jake Massey said the state’s attendance-based funding formula can leave districts with less money even as their fixed costs remain the same.
Districts still have to cover fixed costs like utilities, busing and staffing, even when students are absent, the superintendents said. The superintendents pointed out that 95 out of Idaho’s 115 school districts have a supplemental levy on the books.
Most levies statewide cover staffing costs, which can be higher for Idaho’s northernmost districts as they try to compete with nearby Washington, Massey noted.
The three North Idaho districts are also intertwined financially. All three send students to the Kootenai Technical Education Campus, which is paid for by levy funds from all three districts. The program is “busting at the seams,” Hocker said, and is one of the clearest examples of how the districts work together to serve the broader community.
“They’re able to go right out into the work world,” he said of KTEC graduates.
All three districts have supplemental levies on the books, with Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls asking for funds on November ballots.
A growing challenge is new Idaho residents moving in without understanding Idaho’s funding system or having a tie to their local school district, Massey said.
“That’s what we would leave you guys with,” Massey told attendees. “This is the health of our community, ensuring that we have a future workforce that is ready.”
Wilson added on, arguing it’s a “moral imperative” to educate the next generation.
“Whether you have kids in the system or not … it’s my responsibility to pay it forward,” Wilson said. “I’m a 1989 Post Falls High School graduate, and people at that time paid it forward to me, and now it’s my turn to pay it forward to them.”
