Simple majority rule helps many levies along this year

Washington voters this year felt less generous toward schools than at any time this decade.

But a change in the rules for passing levies assured that most districts still got the money they sought for general operations.

Levies are different from bonds, which require 60 percent approval and can be used to pay for construction and to buy technology. Levies are typically used to pay for day-to-day operations.

Statewide, school districts put 194 levies on the ballot, mostly to fill gaps in their budgets for general school operations and maintenance. Voters approved all but 10 of those levies.

Yet the picture would have been far different if voters hadn’t amended the state constitution to allow passage of levies by a simple majority of voters – as little as one vote over 50 percent. In the past, school levies passed only if they were supported by more than 60 percent of voters.

Under the old rules, 87 levies would have failed this year instead of 10. Among those for which the change made a difference:

•A maintenance and operation levy that pays $390,000 a year for three years in the Cusick School District in Pend Oreille County. The March levy, which passed by a three-vote margin, is paying for textbooks, sports, building improvements and “a laundry list” of other things, Superintendent Dan Read said.

“Originally, we were failing, but the absentees put us over the top,” with 50.26 percent approval, Read said.

Cusick voters had rejected two of the past three levies, starting in 2004. All would have passed under the simple-majority rule.

•Capitol projects levies for the Cheney and Liberty school districts, which passed in March with 59.36 percent and 55.65 percent, respectively.

•A maintenance and operation levy in the Newport School District that passed in February with 54 percent approval.

In Spokane County, only the tiny Great Northern School District placed a maintenance and operation levy on the ballot in 2008. It passed easily, with 35 “yes” votes.

Other Spokane County districts have levies expiring in 2009. Among those planning to put replacement levies on the ballot next year are the Spokane, Central Valley, Mead, East Valley and West Valley districts.

Spokane Public Schools will request $50 million a year for three years, an amount that will not change the current tax rate.

Voters have a tradition of supporting Spokane Public Schools levies, with an average approval rate of nearly 76 percent dating to 1986. There have been no failures since.

Even when Spokane school levies failed in the early 1970s, they always had close to 60 percent approval. In fact, newspaper archives dating to the early ’50s show that every Spokane schools levy had majority support.