EVSD may ask for 4-year levy

In a departure from previous practices, East Valley School District is considering running a four-year replacement maintenance and operations levy on the Feb. 3 ballot.

School districts are allowed to set levies for up to four years at a time, but districts in the area have largely stuck to three-year terms.

The Spokane Valley school districts traditionally collaborate so that all the local levies are on the same ballot, allowing the districts to share the costs of the election. Central Valley has already passed a resolution calling for a three-year replacement M&O levy on the Feb. 3 ballot.

“In our preliminary discussions with West Valley, they might be going four years,” said Superintendent John Glenewinkel. “It’s only an additional year and we can predict our needs well. We save expenses on the elections.”

Districts are allowed to ask voters to approve an amount equal to 24 percent of state and federal money a district receives. The levies are a significant part of the annual budget. Districts must estimate how much growth there will be in assessed property values to set their estimated annual levy collections.

Once voters approve a dollar amount, the district can’t ask for a number larger than that if property values don’t increase as expected. As a result, many districts end up setting conservative numbers that end up giving tax rollbacks in the form of lower amounts collected than what was approved by voters.

The four-year levy would take effect in 2010 and the district is estimating flat payments of $2.53 per $1,000 in assessed home values for each of the four years. “It’s a pretty solid number,” said finance manager Al Swanson. “If anything, it should go down.”

District taxpayers are estimated to pay $2.53 per thousand in 2009 on the last year of the old levy. In 2008, they paid $2.66 per thousand.

Also under discussion is running another bond after two attempts failed this year. No firm date for the bond has been finalized. The district plans to complete a telephone survey of residents by mid-November. “It is yet to be determined and it will be determined in large part by the survey,” Glenewinkel said.

The board does not plan to pass a resolution setting the length and term of the levy until December. “We want to make sure we hear from our community,” he said.