Ballots have started arriving in Spokane County mailboxes for the March 10 election. Numerous school districts are asking for new maintenance and operation levies as their old ones expire.

If you want kids in your community to have an adequate public school education, vote for those levies. The state doesn’t fully pay for basic education, let alone add-ons that most people would agree are important – librarians, counselors, extracurricular activities. Someday, the state might meet its constitutional obligation, but for now, a portion of it is up to us.

The big education issue on the March 10 ballot is Spokane Public Schools’ $288 million bond issue.

This is Phase II of a 25-year plan to roll out bond issues in six-year intervals, mostly to build, renovate and maintain school buildings. Long-range planning is commendable, but when recession strikes you can scale back only at the cost of asking some neighborhoods to accept greater frugality than others have.

Such issues matter. District officials already decided to move two north Spokane schools up the priority list to avoid a bond proposal that otherwise would have pegged only South Hill elementary schools for replacement.

The long-term planning approach has also enabled the district to keep the taxpayers’ cost stable at $1.96 per $1,000 of assessed value, which is what they were paying on bonds approved before 2003. That’s what they’ve been paying during Phase I, that’s what they will pay if Phase II is approved, and that’s what they’ll pay throughout the 25-year plan so long as voters say yes every six years.

Meanwhile, passage of this measure will create local jobs, pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the local economy at a time when “stimulus” is a watchword.

Most conspicuously, there will be a new Ferris High School, Salk Middle School will have a new gym, and Hutton, Jefferson, Finch and Westview elementary schools will be rebuilt or renovated. There’s also a long list of lesser, miscellaneous items, such as almost $26 million worth of technology upgrades.

The technology item is worth a closer look. While different kinds of technology have different life expectancies, some of that money would go for computers, which become outdated after about six years. If the district intends to replace them at the end of their normal life spans, they will have to buy at least two more generations before this 20-year bond issue is retired. We think it would have made more sense to break that part into a separate, shorter technology bond.

It’s not a fatal flaw, however. Certainly not worth the cost of holding a second election, which the district would likely run if voters say no on March 10.

Schools need upkeep and eventually replacement. There will be a chance to revisit the technology issue in six years, but the Phase II bond proposal and the various districts’ respective levy requests that appear on the March 10 ballot deserve approval.