Moscow to ask for help from state to construct new schools

This story has been updated from its original version to correct the name of the Moscow elementary school that could be replaced.

The Moscow School District envisions one day building two new school facilities and it is hoping to receive financial assistance from the Idaho government to achieve that goal.

Moscow School District Superintendent Greg Bailey discussed this Wednesday during a monthly meeting with local county, city and education officials.

Bailey said the school board is working on submitting a resolution to the state asking the governor to spend some of Idaho’s $1.3 billion in surplus money to fund K-12 facilities.

Bailey said he is hoping the school can use state money to eventually build two new school buildings to replace Russell Elementary and Moscow High School.

Russell Elementary, built in 1926, is the oldest school in Moscow. Bailey said remodeling the existing building would be too expensive. Moscow High School is not big enough to meet the education or parking needs of its students, he said.

Having additional funding from the state may help the school district avoid having to ask voters to pass a bond to fund the new facilities.

“It’s such a hard scenario in the state of Idaho to pass a bond because you have not only a super majority, but the state doesn’t help support the funding,” he said.

If two new school facilities are built, they would likely be located on the edge of town where there is enough land to accommodate them. Bailey said that by his estimate, the district would need 60 acres to accommodate the schools.

“We really feel good about our community’s support,” he said. “This community’s been great to us, but we’re also saying that we’ve got to find some different ways to get some of this funding done.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Latah County Commissioner Tom Lamar brought up another way public schools could receive more funding.

He spoke about the ballot initiative called the Quality Education Act (see related story), which just received enough signatures to qualify for November’s general election ballot.

According to reclaimidaho.org, the initiative aims to increase funding for K-12 public schools by $323 million a year to support better wages for teachers and support staff, as well as provide more support for school programs.

The initiative restores the corporate income tax rate to 8% and adds a 4.5% income tax on amounts earned over $500,000 a year for married couples or $250,000 a year for individuals.

“That will help to make the income tax more fair within Idaho,” Lamar said about the initiative. “Idaho has a constitutional mandate to properly fund education and they keep falling short every year.”

Lamar also said that properly funding education at the state level “is the very first step to property tax relief.”

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.