Head of the citizen’s group promoting the Northshore School District’s upcoming supplemental levy, Mike Sharadin said the question is not a local one alone.

As did district officials when they voted to place the measure on the ballot of the Aug. 17 primary, Sharadin said cuts in state funding pretty much left local leaders with few choices.

“It’s a state budget issue that has forced upon the Northshore School District and all other school districts substantial cuts,” he said.

With those cuts in mind, Sharadin claimed the district is operating leanly as is.

“There is very little room to maneuver,” he added.

“There is only so much you can do without greatly impacting children,” echoed Dawn McCravey, president of the Northshore Board of Directors.

According to Sharadin and others, voter passage of the supplemental issue would not lead to restoration of past local cuts, but should reduce the amount of future cuts.

There appears to be no organized opposition to the levy. However, the issue has drawn some criticism.

Both in comments made to the Reporter, as well as at a school board meeting, resident Robert Terry said Northshore leaders need to learn the difference between “needs” and “wants.” Terry noted district voters just approved three funding issues — two levy measures and one bond sale — for the school district in November 2009.

As what he called an example of a “want” and not a “need,” Terry pointed to the improvements now being completed at Pop Keeney Stadium and funded by the November bond issue.

He also tossed into the “want” column a planned renovation at Woodinville High School, a teacher mentoring program and reached back into the past to blast the district for purchasing its current administrative building in Canyon Park.

McCravey said putting the supplemental levy on the ballot was not an easy decision. She said the district held several informational budget workshops and ran on online survey prior to taking any action.

According to previously released district figures, about 1,000 people took part in either the workshops or the survey, with 82 percent in support of at least putting the levy question on the ballot.

Continuing her comments, McCravey said the state legislature continues to ignore what the courts and the state constitution say is the top duty of Washington lawmakers, namely funding basic education. McCravey said she actually has some faith that changes are forthcoming, but also predicted reforms could take years.

“In the meantime, my kids are in the schools, other people’s kids are in school, and they need an education,” McCravey said.

Approved for the ballot by the board in May, the issue could raise as much as $12 million over four years beginning in 2011. In his remarks, Sharadin emphasized the levy would expire in four years.

In discussing the levy issue, school officials have said they are anticipating a $2.9 million budget gap for the 2010-2011 school year. As the board already had to approve a budget for next year, it closed that projected gap with approximately $3 million in budget adjustments.

The biggest move consisted essentially of dipping into the district’s savings, withdrawing $2.2 million. On numerous occasions, Northshore Superintendent Larry Francois has characterized the step as a stop-gap, one-time-only measure.

While local leaders slammed Olympia for education budget cuts, legislative action is what allowed the district to seek the supplemental levy. Francois has said legislators expressly wanted to address what he characterized as the “double whammy” of state funding cuts.

By law, local tax collections can comprise no more than roughly 24 percent of any school district’s overall budget. When Olympia cuts funding, the dollars districts can take in from local collections drop, as well. Presumably in response to that situation, state legislators adopted new rules allowing certain local collections to remain at a certain level even as total school budgets shrink.

Secondly, lawmakers authorized systems to go to voters and ask them to increase the percentage of revenue dollars allowed to be collected locally.

For Northshore, supplemental levy passage would increase the amount of local funding to 28.9 percent of Northshore’s total budget. The total amount collected would depend on the system’s total budget, but estimates have ranged from $5.3 million to the already mentioned $12 million.

If the highest collection levels were reached, initial district figures set the cost of the levy to property owners at 20 cents per $1,000 in valuation. Officials since have stated collections would drop to 10 cents or 11 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation for the last three years of the levy.

Again according to information released by the district, the total school tax rate with the supplemental levy in place would be $4.24 per $1,000 in property value in 2011, with the figure dipping to about $4.15 in the following years.

For a home valued at $400,000, the schools predict an average annual increase of $56 per year in property taxes over the life of the levy.