Spirit Lake fire district warns of layoffs if spring levy fails
Voters turned down a permanent levy last week. The district will ask again in the spring for two years at the same rate.
Downtown Coeur d'Alene. File photo; we don't have our own photo of the Spirit Lake district yet.
The Spirit Lake Fire Protection District says it will have to lay people off if voters turn down its levy again in the spring, KXLY reported Monday.
Last week's request was for a permanent levy. It won 56.43% of the vote, short of the two-thirds it needed. It would have cost about $50 a year on a $500,000 home.
Fire Chief David England told KXLY that voters seemed uneasy with the word "permanent." The district plans to come back in the spring with a two-year levy at the same rate.
The money would pay for two more firefighters and a remodel of the Blanchard station so it can be staffed around the clock.
The district covers about 15,000 people across 120 square miles in Kootenai and Bonner counties. Only one of its three stations is staffed today; the other two are mostly used for storage. Response times in parts of the district can reach 10 minutes, KXLY reported.
What we know
- The permanent levy got 56.43% yes; it needed two-thirds.
- The district plans a two-year levy at the same rate in the spring.
- The district says it would lay people off if the spring levy fails.
What we don't know yet
- The date of the spring election.
- How many jobs would be cut, and which ones.
- How long the current two-year levy has left to run.
Sources
- KXLY: North Idaho voters reject Spirit Lake Fire District levy · Nov. 9, 2026
- Coeur d'Alene Press: Voters: Yes to school levies · Nov. 4, 2026
We report from public records and the sources above, in our own words. When we get something wrong, we fix it and note the fix here.