Three school districts seeking voters’ help
Three Spokane County school districts are holding levy elections Tuesday. Voters should already have their ballots. This is the first election in which a simple majority, rather than a supermajority, is needed to pass the funding measures, the result of an initiative voters passed last November.
Mead School District
Voters in the Mead School District will be asked to approve a $900,000 technology and portable classroom levy.
If approved, $750,000 will go toward technology. The district would get additional student computers, plus equipment in every classroom, such as a computer, digital projector, a media device and a document camera.
The remaining $150,000 will be used for modular classrooms for another fast-growing district.
The district opened Prairie View Elementary School in the Five Mile area last September. As with its other elementary schools, Prairie View was designed to hold about 600 students. The school opened with 550 students, and residential developments are still under construction in the area.
“Modular classrooms are more substantial than the old portable shells,” said Tom Rockefeller, superintendent of the Mead School District, which serves over 9,200 students in 14 different schools.
The classrooms will have better security than the portables, and running water, he said.
The levy, which will be paid over four years, will cost taxpayers 19 cents per $1,000 of assessed property values. Owners of a $200,000 home in the district can expect an increase of $38 per year on their property taxes.
Loon Lake School District
Loon Lake voters are being asked to approve a $2 million capital levy.
The district doesn’t have its own high school and has sent around 60 students in the past five years to Deer Park High School.
Voters in the Deer Park district approved a $24 million school bond to make improvements to the school that hasn’t seen a remodel since 1979. It was designed to accommodate around 500 students and now serves around 670. The project is expected to cost $42 million and the Deer Park School District will receive $18 million in matching funds from the state.
Because 8.5 percent to 9 percent of the student population at Deer Park High School is from the Loon Lake School District, residents from the area will be asked to chip in their share.
The levy would cost taxpayers $1.25 per $1,000 in assessed property value.
Deer Park Superintendent Mick Miller said the amount that would be paid by Loon Lake taxpayers could have been based on assessed property values or on the number of students attending the high school. The amount based on property values would have been around 30 percent of the total project cost, so the district asked for the lower figure.
In addition, the Loon Lake school board had decided to treat the issue as a capital levy to be paid over six years, instead of a bond, which would have been paid over 20 years, saving taxpayers more than $1 million in interest fees.
Loon Lake Superintendent Steve Waunch said another election will have to be scheduled if voters don’t approve the capital levy.
“We’ll have 60 days to run it again, and if it fails, it’s in the state’s hands,” Waunch said. “The law says they would consider annexation.”
Cheney Public Schools
Cheney Public Schools serves around 3,700 students throughout the West Plains and is growing. The district has a capital levy on the ballot to pay for new technology in schools and several capital projects, including a new warehouse, resurfacing of the high school parking lot, new bleachers for the high school football field and automatic doors for better wheelchair access to the buildings.
The levy would cost $1.60 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2009 and $1.55 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2010. It should maintain the total tax rate in the district, since the voter-approved 2006 transportation vehicle fund levy it would replace will expire before any new funds are collected and the overall assessed value has increased.
The two-year levy is expected to raise $3.6 million each year.