GCDSD School levy vote commentary

As a community, we are approaching an important special election on Tuesday, Feb. 11, the outcome of which will clearly impact the quality of education received by our school-aged children. This election will require a decision by voters on whether our community will continue to financially support the Grand Coulee Dam school system by approving a replacement school levy, or not.

Why, you may ask, is a levy even needed? The short answer is that the state of Washington has provided insufficient revenue to adequately fund all of the programs, operations and initiatives required of the local school district. Further, our community is uniquely disadvantaged due to the high percentage of federally owned land and land that is not otherwise eligible for taxation, thereby seriously limiting our tax base/revenue — a resource that most other communities depend upon to support their public school systems.

Our intent in this article and a follow-on article next week, will be to highlight the details of this levy request, hopefully answering questions you may have about the levy process enabling each of us to make an informed and responsible decision on this crucial, pending levy vote.

The new levy will help fund educational programs and operations (EP&O levy) beginning in the 2025/2026 school year and will be effective for four consecutive school years thereafter. The “cost” to the property owner is estimated to be $2.13 per $1,000 of local property value and replaces a three-year levy originally approved to cost $2.00 per $1,000 of property value.

Failure to approve this levy request would reduce the GCDSD budget by more than $1,700,000 per year — $1 million from the levy and roughly $700,000 from the state in an annual state-authorized supplement. Without an approved levy in place, the state supplement is withheld. The total annual reduction in revenue would force significant cuts in all currently offered school programs and staffing. The negative impact on public education in this community would be profound.

Next week’s article in The Star will go into additional detail on the “cost” of the levy and the specific educational areas financially affected by levy revenues.

The Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors

Shannon Nicholson, Rich Black,

George La Place,

Alex Tufts and

Buffy Nicholson