By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Voting that will begin in the next few days will decide the fate of two Eatonville School District levies.
On the ballots that Pierce County election officials will mail to voters on Jan. 26 are a two-year levy request and another proposal that would be in effect for six years. Combined, they would provide millions of dollars from property taxes for school services and programs.
Supporters of the measures note the two-year educational programs and operations levy wouldn’t be a new tax and would be assessed at a lower rate than the one it would replace. And they describe the six-year capital levy as the same thing property owners face – the cost of keeping buildings in good condition.
After receiving their special-election ballots from the county auditor, voters will have until Feb. 13 to make their choices and mail the ballots back or deposit them in official dropboxes.
The levies can pass or fail with a simple majority of votes (anything over 50 percent).
The last time an Eatonville schools levy passed was in 2014, when a measure to collect about $4.5 million a year from 2015 to 2018 received a 61 percent yes vote. At stake was roughly one-quarter of the district's funding for teachers, buses, academic programs such as special-education, remediation and English as Second Language, books and high-tech learning materials, and facilities.
Here’s what the district and levy backers hope will pass this time in the upcoming election:
• An educational programs and operations levy that calls for property tax collections of a combined $7.5 million over two years (2018-20) at a rate of $2.51 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. It would replace a current levy that expires at the end of this year and would continue funding for teaching, school supplies, technology, athletics, music, drama and transportation. The funding would represent 20 percent of the district’s budget.
• A capital levy that would tax property owners at a rate of 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation during the tax collection years of 2019 to 2024. If it passes, it would cover routine maintenance and upkeep of school buildings, improvements, expansion and renovation, plus technology infrastructure and student security systems.
The School Board approved sending both ballot measures to voters with the goal of maintaining existing programs and student services. That includes money for programs beyond what the state provides, such teachers to sustain lower class sizes, instructional assistants to work with students in classrooms and supervise them on playgrounds, school buses, gifted-student and advanced placement curriculum, special education, remediation and English as a Second Language programs, books and other learning materials, training for teachers and time for them to prepare quality classroom lessons, and coaching and supervision for sports.
None of the levy money would be used to build new schools, district officials said.
If both levies pass, property owners would be taxed a total of $2.76 per $1,000 of assessed valuation each year but would have smaller tax bills for schools than they do now. For instance, a homeowner with a house assessed at $260,000 would pay $717.60 a year (not counting any changes in the home’s assessed valuation) once the measures took effect. Currently, the owner of such a home pays $3.56 cents per $1,000 ($925 annually). That’s a “savings” of $208 per year in local school levy collections for the Eatonville district, officials said.
If voters reject the levies, changes or cuts in services and programs districtwide would be decided by the School Board.
Superintendent Krestin Bahr has pledged the district’s good “stewardship” of taxpayers’ dollars and said the levies wouldn’t be requested if they weren’t “critical to sustaining operations and providing a high-quality education for our students.”
A pro-levy committee, whose members include School Board member Ronda Litzenberger, calls the levies a continuation of the public’s investment in and support of schools as the “heart and soul of our community.”
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