School Districts Will Ask Voters To Approve Minimal Levies

Thu., Dec. 28, 1995

Jonathan Martin Staff Writer

Four north Spokane County school districts will ask voters on Feb. 6 to approve maintenance levies that would not significantly increase property taxes.

Administrators and residents in the Riverside, Deer Park, Nine Mile Falls and Mead school districts say worries about property taxes kept the proposed levies as low as possible.

“We wanted to try to make it the least hard on taxpayers we can without compromising programs,” said Mary Baker, Deer Park school board president.

If approved, the levy rate in Mead would go down, in part because of a new state law that caps levy amounts.

In Riverside and Deer Park, the proposed levies would not likely change current rates.

In Nine Mile Falls, owners of a $100,000 home would pay about $23 more than they paid in 1995.

The 1997 and 1998 taxes are estimates, based on expected property assessments.

Levies pay for the regular operations of a school district. Additional taxes are collected for approved bond issues, which are used to build new schools or buy expensive teaching tools like computers.

None of the districts is proposing a bond issue.

On average, levies account for about 15 percent of school budgets. State and federal money makes up the rest.

Gaining approval is difficult. Just to get a levy validated, 40 percent of the people who voted in the last general election must drop a ballot in the box Feb. 7.

Sixty percent of those voters must vote yes.

Several school districts, including Riverside, Nine Mile Falls and Deer Park, have had operating levies not validated or rejected by voters.

This year, administrators say the demand for levy money is urgent. Changes made to laws governing special education and money for school buses hurt small, rural school districts like Nine Mile Falls, Riverside and Deer Park.

Nine Mile Falls Superintendent Don Baumberger said the Nine Mile Falls district expects enrollment to grow. Lakeside High School expects 69 seniors to graduate in June. In September, the freshman class will be about 120.

“If growth continues, we may have to have portables at the high school and middle school,” said Baumberger.

, DataTimes

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