Sugar-Salem School District running a $300k supplemental levy

SUGAR CITY, Idaho (KIFI)- The Sugar Salem School district is asking for their patrons to renew a supplemental levy currently on the books, after needing to increase the amount by 100,000 dollars.

Chester Bradshaw the superintendent says the increase for the levy is simply to do with inflation concerns in the area. "We've had $200,000 for many, many years. But this year, the board, as we discussed it for multiple months here about raising it, and we just felt like we needed to raise it to 300,000 to try to maintain our same buying power that we've had in addition to the 200,000."

The levy will help the district in a variety of ways, and not just help with their buying power. "We were going to try to do some more work on our safety and security with our buildings and keep our technology going. Those are the two new expenses that we've listed on the ballot."

Bradshaw mentions that even though the levy is spiking, it shouldn't be much of an increase to what is currently being asked of the patrons.

"We've been thankful and intentional in trying to keep our levy low, keep it affordable for our patrons. We try to do just as well as we can and get by with as little as we can to keep our operations going here," Bradshaw said.

Many of the buildings in the Sugar Salem district aren't too old though many of them have been built in the seventies and eighties, but while the need for a new building isn't present as of yet, the cost to maintain the buildings is rising so that they can keep them functioning the way they need too.

"It takes more and more maintenance to keep those old buildings up to par and to the standards that we expect them to be. And so we've just worked hard and we're very intentional about trying to keep those buildings maintained."

The levy will appear on the ballot for 600 thousand dollars, but Bradshaw says the levy is for two years, and is just a renewal of the current levy with a little more added onto it.

He says annually the levy will cost $300,000. He's grateful for all of the support the district has received in the past and hopes to see it continue.