School levy on August ballot would just maintain

Voters will decide if the Grand Coulee Dam School District will function on the same amount of money it has been, or be forced into a budget made much tighter by the new school funding law passed by the state Legislature last year.

The district’s proposition for a four-year “Capital Levy Ffor Safety, Technology Aand Facilities Improvements” will be on the Aug. 7 ballot.

Money from the general fund that currently goes toward certain things, such as technology, would, if the levy passes, come from the levy, freeing up money in the general fund for other uses.

“We need to improve our security, our camera system, our communication between buildings,” Superintendent Paul Turner said.

Another improvement money from the levy would go toward would be installing a new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system in the gymnasium, which can get stuffy at events.

Technology falls under the category of capital improvements as well, both hardware, such as computers, and software.

Next month, the district’s board of directors will likely approve a budget that doesn’t factor in the levy, but would factor it in later if it passes.

“If it doesn’t pass, we’ll go by that tight budget,” Turner said. “It will be squeaky tight.”

“I’m going out to community groups through the month of July just to see what questions people have,” Turner said. “I think the biggest thing is people understanding that we’re trying to maintain what we had.”

Turner explained that the state really hurt small rural districts with recent changes in law.

In 2019 the state will drop the school’s “maintenance and operations” levy from $4.01 per thousand dollars of assessed property value to $1.50, a loss of $2.51 per thousand dollars of assessed property value.

In addition to that change, the state is currently taking an additional 81 cents per thousand for schools, which drops the total lost difference from $2.51 to $1.70, the amount the district hopes to make up with the new levy.

In 2017, people paid a total of $4.01 per thousand. In 2018, that number went up to $4.82 because of the extra 81 cents going directly to the state. Without the levy, the rate will drop to $2.51, which would result in about half a million dollars less money for the district. The passage of the levy would simply bring the rate back to where it was in 2017.

“ Historically, everyone was willing to support the school at that rate, and we’re not trying to get more, we’re just trying to maintain what we had,” Turner noted. “And we need to maintain what we had so we can keep moving forward. We just can’t get capital improvements done the way they are, and this will enable us to do those things.”

The levy would generate an estimated $488,000 in 2019, $498,000 in 2020, $508,000 in 2021, and $518,000 in 2022. With $1.70 per thousand dollar of assessed property value as a jumping -off point, the rate would be adjusted over the years, going up if property values went down, and going down if property values went up, to meet those dollar amounts.

With the passage of the levy, money would start coming into the district in spring of 2019.