Levy Vote Is Fine; Timing Is Suspect

Are you going to vote in the March 14 election? If you don’t, many of you will be playing right into the hands of your local school district.

The Central Valley, East Valley, West Valley and Freeman school districts - along with others across Spokane County - have placed maintenance and operations levies before voters this month. These M&O levies are important because they provide a significant portion of each district’s annual budget.

The problem is that at the same time our school districts are asking us to open our wallets, they are picking our pockets.

How so?

By holding a separate special election for these levies on March 14 rather than simply piggybacking them onto the Feb. 29 presidential primary as many other school districts across the state chose to do.

I’d say this tactic smells at least two weeks past the “sell by” date.

According to the county Elections Office, the cost to taxpayers of staging this special levy election estimated at $225,000.

Holy school bells! That’s a lot of chalk and erasers! Certainly, that much money could buy a lot of computers or geometry books or - imagine this - could very nearly pay the full salaries of 10 new teachers.

Now, it’s important to note that both the Spokane Valley Fire District and Newman Lake Fire District 13 will also have matters on the March 14 ballot. It’s equally important to note that the fire districts, as they usually do, followed along after the schools had selected their date.

You have to wonder: Why are our school districts burning dollars for a special election?

They dodged Tuesday’s vote because they were worried that the presidential primary would bring out a large number of voters. In short, they don’t want too many of the “wrong” voters showing up. I suppose these would be people who don’t have kids in school and maybe aren’t interested in supporting a tax for a service from which they may not perceive a direct benefit.

I find this quite disturbing for several reasons.

In fact, Valley voters have a truly remarkable record of supporting our school levies. Freeman voters have passed every M&O levy since 1983; Central Valley since 1973 and West Valley since 1965. East Valley wins master bragging rights for education funding leadership, having passed every M&O levy since 1959 - the year the district was formed!

Yet, the Valley’s school boards and administrators seem to lack any faith in the very folks who have kept their coffers reliably filled these many decades.

What’s more, Cental Valley, East Valley and West Valley all are proposing three-year levy packages, rather than the two-year levy that has been the historical norm.

I doubt this is an attempt at long-term financial planning. It’s unlikely that budget projections beyond two years are reliable enough to commit the districts to a fixed-rate revenue stream for any longer than that.

It seems plain that the reason for moving to an odd-year election cycle is to avoid elections that might actually attract a large number of “undesirable” voters.

I’m wondering if maybe the school officials forgot to do their homework.

If they had studied the matter, they surely would have discovered that the presidential primary in Washington - a state that still chooses most of its delegates through party caucuses - generally isn’t a big voter magnet.

Average voter turnout in Spokane County for presidential primaries in the 1990s was 19 percent, according to the county Elections Office. Average turnout for special school levy elections, meanwhile, is 35 percent.

The very idea of seducing voters to disenfranchise themselves this way is a slap in the face to those who have faithfully supported our schools.

It is indeed eminently logical to expect a responsible citizenry with a proven record of support for local education to show up and cast a very direct and decisive ballot to support the major institutions upon which the success of our children depend.

Of course, nobody is actually denying us any rights. We can all show up on March 14. We can turn back the contempt.

Neighbors, I very much want our schools to succeed. To do so, they need adequate funding. Moreover, I care very deeply that our children yield the highest possible educational benefit from our tax dollars.

Since my constitutional rights are underwritten by my tax dollars, I’m going to show up at the polls on March 14 and I’ll know why.

Let’s all get our money’s worth.