Officials expressed gratitude at the passage and said they weren’t surprised by the thin margin of victory apparently won by the Northshore School District’s supplemental levy.
Aug. 17 primary numbers won’t be final until about noon Sept. 1. Still, as of the latest figures available for this issue, the levy was passing in King County by a margin of 9,953 votes for, to 8,540 ballots against, or 53.8 percent to 46.1 percent. In Snohomish County, the numbers were running 4,894 in favor to 4,561 against, or 51.7 percent to 48.2 percent.
“We’re obviously pleased,” said Superintendent Larry Francois, who seemed to believe the closeness of the victory was due in part to what he described as the unusual nature of the levy issue, one that was made possible only by recent legislative action in Olympia.
And while Francois didn’t mention the fact, the levy is the fourth money issue local voters have approved for the schools in less than a year. Francois did say he is not looking at passage of multiple money issues in a seemingly short time frame as an invitation to put further money questions before voters.
“I don’t foresee that anything will come up again soon,” Francois said. “We’re definitely at a point… where maybe we need to stand down for a while and appreciate the support the community has exhibited.”
Francois said in his opinion, going to voters again any time soon would be “disrespectful.”
Chair of the citizen’s group that promoted the latest levy, Mike Sharadin said any number of factors made it “fair and reasonable” that the vote was close. He said among those issues are the financial pressures still being felt by many families, as well as the low voter turnout. Sharadin added there were some issues surrounding the levy that even those willing to support it didn’t fully understand.
Northshore resident Robert Terry ran a one-man campaign against the levy, putting up anti-levy yard signs and taking out an ad against the issue in the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter. Terry claims many of the 200 yard signs he put in place were “systematically removed.”
“I think the NSD (Northshore School District) administration and school board should take notice that almost 50 percent of the voters did not approve their request and be advised the integrity of the district is coming into question by taxpayers,” Terry said.
Terry claimed he received about 225 e-mails and phone calls in response to his newspaper ad and that all those who contacted him supported his position, some even volunteering to help pay for that ad.
While Terry continues to contend the district needs to reign in spending, Francois said passage of the supplemental levy should allow the district to maintain its current level of service. He did add no one knows what might happen when the state legislature begins meeting again in January.
“All indications are, things will not be better,” said Francois, who along with other local officials, long has blamed state funding reductions for the need to increase local school funding. Sharadin commented some voters fought the supplemental levy for just that reason, arguing they didn’t want to shift more of the funding burden from the state to local property owners and in the process hand state officials an excuse not to fund eduction.
The supplemental levy allows the district to increase the amount of local funding to 28.9 percent of Northshore’s overall budget. While how much the levy will collect depends on property values and other factors, estimates of its value range between $5.3 million and $12 million.
If the highest collection levels are reached, the levy initially will cost property owners 20 cents per $1,000 in valuation. District officials say the rates will drop to 10 cents or 11 cents in the last three years of the four-year issue.
