State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield wrapped up the North Idaho leg of her statewide listening tour in Coeur d’Alene on June 18, gathering input from educators and school board members on how Idaho should modernize a K-12 funding formula that has gone largely unchanged since the 1990s. A virtual session is scheduled for June 25 to close out the public comment phase.
About a dozen people attended the Coeur d’Alene stop — a small but pointed gathering that surfaced persistent concerns about Idaho’s standing as the lowest per-pupil spender in the nation, a distinction that drew sharp words from local education leaders.
Coeur d’Alene Schools Shouldering Heavy Levy Burden
Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Shon Hocker, who spent time leading districts in Wyoming and North Dakota before returning to head Coeur d’Alene Public Schools in 2021, offered a blunt assessment of the state’s funding posture. “We can’t take pride in being funded dead last in the country and expect significant improvement,” he said during the session.
Hocker’s district has leaned heavily on local supplemental levies to fill the gap left by state funding. Coeur d’Alene currently employs 164 people whose salaries fall entirely outside what the state funding formula covers. That levy now accounts for more than 25 percent of the district’s entire operating budget, and trustees recently voted to increase their levy request to $30.25 million for the coming fall. The district also relies on those local dollars to fund full-day kindergarten — a program the state formula does not fully support.
The wage picture inside the district underscores the strain. Classified employees are reimbursed at roughly $42,000 annually, and some building principals earn only $2,000 more per year than the teachers they supervise — a gap that educators argue makes recruitment and retention of experienced administrators difficult.
Hocker put the situation plainly: “Half of not enough is still just not enough.”
The levy dependence is not unique to Coeur d’Alene, but the district’s scale makes the numbers stark. When more than a quarter of a district’s budget depends on voters approving a tax measure every two years, long-range planning becomes difficult and the burden falls disproportionately on local property owners rather than the broader state tax base.
Idaho’s overall education budget already consumes more than half of state general fund spending, which makes the funding formula debate politically complex. Lawmakers face pressure to boost per-student allocations without triggering broader tax increases — a tension that has stalled formula reform for decades. For more on how Idaho compares nationally, see Idaho’s recent child well-being rankings, which highlight the gap between the state’s overall performance and its education-specific numbers.
Attendance-Based Funding Hits Post Falls Hard
Post Falls School District brought a different but related concern to the table: the funding formula’s reliance on average daily attendance rather than enrollment. With an attendance rate hovering around 93 percent, Post Falls loses the funding equivalent of a new car every two days — adding up to an estimated $3 million in annual revenue the district never sees, despite those students being enrolled and the district bearing the fixed costs of educating them.
Post Falls trustee Sara Rodriguez proposed a terminology change that could shift public perception of the levy system, suggesting districts refer to supplemental levies as “maintenance and operations levies” to better communicate what the money actually funds.
West Bonner trustee Margy Hall focused her remarks on smaller rural districts, advocating for regional education hubs as a structural solution to help geographically isolated communities access services and share resources more efficiently.
What Comes Next
The final public listening session moves online June 25, giving Idahoans across the state — including families and educators throughout Shoshone County and the Silver Valley — an opportunity to weigh in before Critchfield’s office compiles feedback for legislative consideration. The funding formula discussion is expected to carry into the 2027 legislative session, where any structural changes would need to clear the full Legislature and survive budget negotiations.
For Silver Valley families watching the process, the stakes are familiar. Small rural districts face many of the same pressures Post Falls and West Bonner described — fixed operational costs, attendance volatility, and a state formula that has not kept pace with modern district needs. Statewide education coverage is available at Idaho News.