After two school levies fail, board mulls trying one in November

With roughly 56% of voters voting against two levies in the Grand Coulee Dam School District last week, school board members are looking into running just one levy in November.

In the Feb. 8 election, the Educational Programs and Operation Levy failed 631 votes to 483 among voters in the district, while the Capital Levy for Safety, Technology and Facilities Improvements failed 599-477.

Combined, the two levies would have brought in a combined $1.4-$1.7 million per year from 2023 to 2026 into the school district. 

Superintendent Paul Turner spoke about the levy failures during Monday’s board meeting, and explained that in looking at rerunning the levies this year, the educational levy is the most important. It helps to pay for educational services ranging from preschool to special education and more, while the capital levy simply helps pay for repairs.

Additionally, Turner is hopeful that the school will receive about $2.9 million dollars in the form of a state “modernization” grant that the district had applied for a few years ago. It’s now near the top of the list to receive the funds if the state Legislature budgets for it.

Those funds would offset the school not getting capital levy dollars for a couple of years and could pay for building repairs but can’t be used for day-to-day operations.

The educational levy is also tied to about $700,000 more per year from the state for “levy equalization” that the district doesn’t get if voters don’t approve a levy.

Turner said they need to run that levy again for anywhere between $1.50 and $2.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value either in April, August, or November to qualify for the equalization dollars.

The three board directors present agreed that they would like to wait for November.

The group discussed wanting to see what the collection numbers would be when running an educational levy for $1.50, $2, or $2.50.

Board Director Rich Black liked the idea of running the levy in November. 

“I think we need to take our best shot, not our nearest shot,” he said.

Directors George LaPlace and Shannon Nicholson agreed. 

Black noted that the November vote, being a larger election with higher turnout due to congressional races, may help matters. And the climate surrounding the pandemic may change by then, as well, directors noted.

Turner said he needs to get the 2022-23 school year budget ready before the end of June, and will need to budget for the lost funds of about $800,000 for that school year.

Turner clarified to The Star how that $800,000 breaks down. The district is still collecting levy dollars in the calendar year of 2022, and the fall collection will apply to the 2022-23 school year’s budget.

With the levies not passing, however, the district won’t collect that money in 2023. Therefore, the district can only apply to its budget half a year’s worth of the educational levy collection, about $450,000, and half of the levy equalization dollars, about $350,000, for a total of $800,000 rather than $1.6 million.

That means the district must cut $800,000 from its 2022-23 school year budget, or about 5% of the current school year budget of $14.5 million.

The loss of capital levy dollars won’t figure into the budget cut. Turner said that the capital levy loss doesn’t mean cuts have to be made, but rather that planned repairs can’t be made.

If a levy passes later this year, the district can still collect for 2023, and then apply those funds back to the 2022-23 budget.

Turner speculated that the levies may have failed for multiple reasons, including low turnout and people being sick of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Black said that it could be good for voters to be able to see what gets cut, which can include staffing and programs.

“They need to be well informed of the consequences,” he said. “Elections have consequences.”