School levy approved for August ballot

Local area voters will be faced with deciding on approval of a school levy that would restore six figures of property taxes per year to the school district for the next four years, but not raise tax rates higher than they were in 2017, putting them back to 81 cents lower than they are for 2018.

Property taxes supporting the school district currently take $4.01 per thousand dollars of assessed property value towards a local “operations and maintenance” levy. In spring of 2019, that number drops to $1.50 per thousand, a difference of $2.51 resulting from a new law, Engrossed House Bill (EHB) 2242, passed by Legislature in 2017.

This year, in addition to the $4.01, the state takes an additional 81 cents per thousand as a result of the Legislature’s revamp of school funding. Factoring that in makes the total missing difference $1.70 per thousand.

Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Paul Turner has proposed a $1.70 per thousand “capital levy,” which would put local rates back to the same level they were in 2017 at $4.01 per thousand. Factoring in the state’s 81 cents in the decision to propose a $1.70 instead of $2.51 per thousand levy would in effect save taxpayers 81 cents per thousand in comparison to this year’s circumstances.

The Grand Coulee Dam School District board voted Monday night to put the “Grand Coulee Dam School District 301J Capital Levy for Safety Technology and Facilities Improvements”

on the ballot for local voters to approve or deny in the upcoming August 7 election.

The proposed levy would help compensate for money the district will lose from the passage of EHB 2242, and put six figures per year for four years into the school district’s capital fund at $488,000 the first year, $498,000 the second year, $508,000 the third year, and $518,000 the fourth year.

Originally conceived as bringing in $480,000 per year for four years, the amount of the levy, was increased to account for property value going up an estimated 2 percent each year, while still maintaining the $1.70 rate.

“Almost 91 percent of the school district is impacted by federal lands,” noted Director Butch Stanger. “If we were urban we’d have other choices. We don’t have that alternative. Taxpayers need to know this isn’t a tax in addition to the $1.50; this is a tax that supplements only those uses identified by capital levies that we haven’t been able to pay for in the past.”

The language on the levy states that the school district would be authorized to use the money for “safety, technology and facilities improvements, including acquiring security cameras, communication and emergency systems, classroom computers and other technology equipment, and renovating, modernizing, and repairing Lake Roosevelt schools.”

“It will allow us to upgrade the safety stuff; that is the biggest thing to me, right now,” Turner said later. “Right now our security system — between the new building, the [former high school], the bus garage, to the district office, to the former middle school up above — they all don’t communicate with one another, and we need to change that. It shouldn’t be that someone has to get on the phone and try and call everybody. So we have to put that in place and we don’t have the ability to do that right now.”

“The technology for this year and all four years is going to be a big deal,” Turner added, saying that money from the levy can go towards new computers and help compensate for money lost from the general fund due to recent changes in laws.

Turner also said that money can also be set aside to fix up the former middle school to meet new goals for the building to be used as a skill center, once the school board gets more specific on its vision for the future.

More specific details on use of the money are spelled out in the levy language itself.

The levy would leave flexibility for the school to adjust the use of the money as time goes on.