Voters across Montana were asked to approve levies for their local schools Tuesday and in most areas, they passed. But both the levies for the Great Falls School District failed by a very small margin. Voter turnout was the highest ever, well over half of the 31,000 ballots sent out were returned. Voters were asked to approve a $2.7 million property tax increase and that money would have gone to the schools. The High School Levy failed by only a few hundred votes out of over 18,000. The Elementary school levy failed by an even smaller margin. Only 133 more votes for the measure and it would have passed. It’s the first time the district has lost a levy in more than a decade. Superintend Cheryl Crawley said “My reaction is tremendous sadness on behalf of our children.” The money would have gone to the schools general fund to maintain programs now in place. So what has to go? We’re told 13 teaching positions will be eliminated. The summer school program will be cut down or ended and Advanced Placement classes will be cut down. In addition to rising costs for things like gas for school buses and energy to heat the classrooms, there was also a major drop in state funding this year something that Superintendent Crowley hopes won’t happen again. “I really do hope that everybody works together now…so it doesn’t go up and down dramatically like it did this time” she said. In our view area Wolf Point and the Sun River Valley School District were the only other levies that went down. But the majority of levies did pass. Money will be going to Fort Benton, Havre, Helena and several other school districts courtesy of taxpayers. The schools are only allowed to pursue a levy once a year due to state law. They will have to wait unit next year to ask for another levy or for more money from the state. In the meantime they’ll have to deal with $1.8 million in cuts.