Cayuse Prairie School to Take $300,000 Levy Pitch to Voters this May
After months of deliberation, the district settled on an amount that would maintain current programming, provide a cost-of-living adjustment to its teachers and allow it to bring more support staff onboard. Without the levy’s passage, the school could face programming cuts.
By Mariah Thomas
For months, Cayuse Prairie School hosted community discussions in preparation for launching a levy pitch. On Wednesday night, the school board finally pulled the trigger, approving a $300,000 ask for May’s ballot.
That ask will bring in about 27.44 mills for the district and comes with an estimated impact of $62.56 annually for a $300,000 home. For a home valued at $600,000, it’s estimated to cost $181.10 annually.
Without passing a levy, board chair Tyler Hash said the school is looking at cutting anything that’s “nice to have, not need to have.” Items that could land on the chopping block include classroom aide positions — which the district has heralded as critical for students’ academic success — and cutting back the long-standing horticulture program.
The rural district has stayed afloat without a levy passing for 20 years, Hash said, though not for lack of trying. But in recent years, the question of school funding has become more and more difficult for Cayuse Prairie. Like several districts across the area and state, Cayuse Prairie has grappled with a fiscal cliff brought on by inflation and the sunsetting of COVID funds.
Cayuse Prairie has also emphasized its growth as another exacerbating factor in the calculus to put a levy to voters. The formerly small school serving 240 students has 25% more students today than it did a decade ago. Its enrollment has topped 300 students, and it’s still growing. The school is looking toward a future where it will likely have to expand physically to accommodate its enrollment. Efforts to save money by moving to a four-day school week, and to bring in more revenue by having students pay for activities and pursuing grant funding, have stalled out.
The goal of a levy, long-time Superintendent Amy Piazzola previously told the Beacon, was for Cayuse Prairie to maintain its current levels of programming.
“It’s not like we’re trying to add anything additional to what we’re doing,” Piazzola said in a December interview. “We do have a great system of testing our kids, seeing where they’re at, continuing to monitor their growth and, you know, our ultimate goal is every student is growing to whatever their potential could be.”
The district landed on its $300,000 ask after considering a wide menu of options ranging from $100,000 to $450,000. Asks at the lower end of the spectrum would allow the district to simply keep its programming at the current level, while a higher dollar amount would mean the district could save for future building needs.
Should voters approve a $300,000 levy, Hash said it would keep all the district’s current classroom aides and its horticulture program in place.
It would also allow for the district to provide a 4% cost-of-living adjustment for its teachers. As it stands, Cayuse Prairie is just meeting the standards outlined in the state’s STARS Act, which passed in last spring’s legislative session and aimed to increase starting teacher pay. Hash said increasing wages could help the district with teacher recruitment and retention. That challenge is one districts across Montana are navigating as the state grapples with an educator shortage.
And passing a levy would allow the district to bring on additional staff members. Namely, the district would plan to add an additional classroom aide to accommodate its growing student body; another janitor; and a new office staff member.
“Those are all areas where we’re just not keeping up,” Hash said.
However, that levy amount does not provide funds for the district to save money for any new building efforts.
“It should give us some breathing space for the next several years, but it doesn’t start getting after future construction or long-term sustainability,” Hash said.
As the May 5 special district election looms, Cayuse Prairie will continue hosting community meetings to spread information about the levy. Those meetings will take place March 11 at 6 p.m., April 9 at noon and April 17 at 5:30 p.m. All the meetings will be held at Cayuse Prairie School.
Ballots for the May election will be mailed out April 17. They will be due back to Cayuse Prairie School or the Flathead County Election Department by 5 p.m. on May 5.