Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
School levies to go before voters in Colton and Oakesdale in two weeks are against the law.
Last February, the Colton school board approved a levy for 2019 at $3.08 per thousand dollars of assessed property value. In June, the Washington state legislature made a rule to cap the limit at $1.50 per thousand.
“We’re in a really unique spot,” said Paul Clark, who was named Colton Superintendent last July.
The district has since dropped its asking rate for its 2020 levy to $2.50 per thousand, which also is not allowed unless the legislature makes changes again.
“It looks like they will change it,” said Clark. “We’ll certainly hope they do. I’m certain the legislators didn’t try to create a problem for districts.”
Oakesdale is seeking a four-year levy at a rate of $3.67 per thousand. Supt. Jake Dingman told the Gazette that the Oakesdale board has asked to maintain the local amount because payments from the state are not expected to fill the gap. The anticipated yearly shortfall for Oakesdale would be $450,000 – subtracted from its intended levy total of $667,000 per year from 2020-23 – if held to the $1.50 per thousand rate.
The legislature’s $1.50 limit on local maintenance and operation levies is part of legislation to comply with the state supreme court’s 2012 McCleary decision for equal funding for basic education across the state.
For Colton, this year’s annual levy would account for 10 percent of its total budget, to go to pay for athletics, activities, food service, pre-school and maintenance.
“We tried to find a middle ground,” Clark said of the $2.50 rate for Colton’s 2020 levy. “We can go a year, maybe two without this getting fixed.”
The matter is expected to come up in Olympia in the current legislative session, which began Jan. 14, scheduled to run to the end of April.
Expectations
Colton’s current $3.08 per thousand levy passed in February 2018 was expected to reap $496,935. At $1.50 per thousand it would bring in less than half of that.
“The voters passed it but we’re not able to collect it,” said Clark.
A levy’s taxes are collected at two times during the year. For Colton’s 2019 collections, because of the change in state law, they will be at $1.50 regardless of what voters passed last year.
Both Colton and Oakesdale have included a “subject to legal limits” condition on their levy requests which mean the 2020 levy collection will conform to the state law at the time regardless of what voters might approve in the Feb. 12 vote.
“This is confusing to me, it’s confusing to our board,” said Clark. “And this is my bread and butter. It’s a really turbulent time.”
The Colton levy is run every year, while many districts run them every two years or four years.
“We do it every year here because we can have good and bad years in agriculture,” Clark said.
Colton’s total assessed property evaluation is $153 million.
“Our schools must be responsive to our local communities,” Clark said. “… I have strong expectations for this current levy.”
If the rule stays at $1.50 per thousand, what will local schools do?
“I would guess those districts would try to run a second levy to collect it,” said Clark. “We have a bit of wiggle room, but that’s just a dangerous slope to go down. There’s just a lot of uncertainty right now.”
The Colton board was set to meet Tuesday night, with plans to send out a mailing to residents later this week.
Ballots were sent out Jan. 25.
“We have high hopes the legislature is going to allow more local control back,” Clark said.
State/local
Complicating the matter somewhat in Colton is that the district has 25 more students than forecast for the 2018-19 school year, a number which affects payments from the state – which arrive monthly as part of about 30 separate funds to a district relating to student count and other factors.
How have these payments been affected by the McCleary deal last year?
“Some funds have gone up, but local control money has gone down significantly,” Clark said.
He noted that some districts under the new arrangement are in an improved situation.
“There are districts who are winners in the current system, there’s just a lot of districts who aren’t,” he said.
The 2012 McCleary decision by the Washington state Supreme Court determined that education was underfunded, mandating full-funding from the state legislature by 2018. A total of about $2 billion was then allocated last year for schools, with certain amounts going to each district.
The agreement put the levy cap in place intending to reduce the need for local money collected for education. The full cap is $1.50 per thousand or $2,500 per student, whichever is less.
The Lamont School District also seeks a levy Feb. 12, but theirs set at $1.50 per thousand for $85,000 in 2020 and $90,000 in 2021.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
Reader Comments(0)