State education officials wrapped up the in-person portion of a statewide tour Thursday in Coeur d’Alene, gathering input from local educators and school leaders on how Idaho might modernize a K-12 funding formula that has gone largely unchanged since the 1990s.
The event, hosted as part of State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield’s listening session tour, drew about a dozen attendees. A final virtual session is scheduled for June 25, giving additional stakeholders a chance to weigh in before any formal recommendations take shape.
A Formula Decades Past Due
Educators who attended the Coeur d’Alene session made clear they believe the state’s approach to school funding is structurally inadequate. Idaho consistently ranks last among all 50 states in per-pupil K-12 spending — a distinction that drew pointed remarks from Coeur d’Alene Public Schools Superintendent Shon Hocker.
“We can’t take pride in being funded dead last in the country and expect significant improvement,” Hocker said during the session.
Hocker, who has led the district since 2021 after previously working in Wyoming and North Dakota, offered a stark picture of how Coeur d’Alene manages to perform well despite tight state funding. The district is considered one of Idaho’s highest-performing by multiple measures, but that performance comes at a cost — one increasingly borne by local taxpayers rather than state coffers.
The Coeur d’Alene school board recently voted to increase its supplemental levy request to $30.25 million for the fall — a figure that represents more than 25 percent of the district’s total budget. That levy funds 164 employees who fall entirely outside the state’s funding formula. In other words, more than a quarter of the district’s financial foundation rests on voter-approved local taxes rather than predictable state support.
The state’s reimbursement rate for classified employees in the district sits at roughly $42,000 per year — a figure educators described as out of step with market wages. Hocker also highlighted the narrow salary gap between some principals and teachers in Idaho, with the difference amounting to as little as $2,000 annually, raising concerns about the pipeline for school leadership.
“Half of not enough is still just not enough,” Hocker said, describing what incremental adjustments to the current formula would yield without deeper structural reform.
Idaho’s ongoing struggles in education funding are part of a broader pattern. A recent national child well-being index ranked Idaho 13th overall, but the state’s education scores lagged behind its other metrics — a sign that the funding gap has real consequences for student outcomes.
Attendance-Based Funding Draws Concern
Post Falls School District officials raised concerns about how Idaho’s average daily attendance model distributes funds. Because state dollars follow attendance figures, the district estimates it loses approximately $3 million each year — even though its average attendance rate runs near 93 percent. School leaders compared the loss to watching the equivalent of a new car disappear from their budget every two days, a figure that underscores how the attendance-based model can penalize even well-functioning districts.
Attendees also raised the issue of regional education hubs, which once provided coordination and support across districts but no longer exist. Critchfield indicated she is exploring ways to restore some version of that regional structure without requiring additional legislative action — a sign she may be looking for administrative solutions ahead of any formal session-driven overhaul.
What Comes Next
The June 25 virtual listening session will close out the formal input-gathering phase of Critchfield’s tour. After that, the state superintendent’s office is expected to compile the feedback collected across all stops and use it to shape a proposal for modernizing the funding formula. Any changes of significant scale would likely require legislative approval, meaning the earliest a reformed formula could take effect would be following action by the Idaho Legislature. Educators and school boards across North Idaho will be watching closely, with districts like Coeur d’Alene increasingly reliant on local levies to bridge the gap between what the state provides and what schools actually need to operate.