Spokane Public Schools levy will be on November ballots

The Spokane Public Schools Board on Wednesday unanimously approved sending an educational programs and operations tax levy to voters’ ballots in November.

The property tax levy would collect at an estimated rate of $2.50 per $1,000 in assessed property value, according to the resolution, generating a total $333 million over its three-year life.

The levy wouldn’t start collecting until 2028, replacing the current tax levy that collects at the same rate.

The educational programs and operations levy constitutes around 15% of the district’s total operating budget. It pays for everything that falls beyond the state’s definition of “basic education,” including additional teachers, extracurriculars, some nurses and sports.

“Those are things that our community has come to expect from our public school system, and those are contingent on the provision of the levy,” Superintendent Adam Swinyard said. “We’re so blessed in Spokane to have the levy support that has been provided over the years, and it really provides what we have today.”

Swinyard previously told the board that without a levy, the district would have to cut 400 to 500 positions.

Swinyard already expects to cut 150 positions next school year due to cost increases – just as the district did last year.

He said the district will avoid layoffs and rely on attrition as it has done in previous years while “contracting” the budget.

“This won’t be an expansion of services; it won’t be increasing staffing levels. This is really about just mitigating the plan that’s already in place and keeping that contraction number at what it currently is,” Swinyard said. “There’s still going to be contractions even with the passage of a new levy; that’s just the reality of inflation.”

When considering payments to which voters already agreed in previous tax requests, the total estimated tax rate from the district would be $4.15 per $1,000 in 2028 and 2029, moving up to $4.17 in 2030, according to district estimates from last month.

That’s an increase from the projected rate in 2027, which is $3.96.

Combined with state-imposed property taxes that go to schools, a property owner in the Spokane Public Schools district would pay an estimated rate of around $6.36 per $1,000 in years 2028 to 2030, according to the May estimates.