Evergreen Public Schools will place a two-year replacement maintenance and operations levy measure on the Feb. 9 ballot, the school board decided Wednesday.
The local levy would raise $40.8 million in 2011 and $41.5 million in 2012.
Estimated tax rates would be $3.49 and $3.55, applied per $1,000 of assessed property value.
District leaders recommended only a two-year measure due to uncertainties in property values and the cost of missing out on maximum local tax dollars allowed.
It would follow a four-year levy that expires next year.
School board members agreed, 4-0, that taxpayers would be more inclined to support a shorter levy than a longer one, and that the economy might be in better shape after those two years.
“With this economy being as unpredictable as it is, there’s too many assumptions to make” on a longer levy, Superintendent John Deeder said Wednesday night. “ We don’t know. We’re being very conservative.“
The board said it would hold public meetings to explain the proposed levy and to answer questions.
Local tax collections would rise nearly 6 percent in 2011 and about 1.7 percent the second year of the two-year levy.
The larger increase in the first year is needed to close the gap between taxes collected and the state-allowed maximum for Evergreen. Potentially missing that target is a key reason to go for a shorter levy, board members said.
Currently, Evergreen’s M&O levy supplies nearly $1 of every $6 accounted for in the district’s $237.3 million operating budget in 2009-10.
That wouldn’t change much under the new proposal for the 27,000-student district, Clark County’s largest.
Levy dollars are used for classroom, supplies, training, extracurricular and transportation expenses, plus other costs not covered by state funding for what’s considered basic education.
If successful at the ballot, Evergreen’s two-year plan would further splinter what briefly became a synchronized election cycle for Clark County school districts.
Thanks to four-year levies approved in 2006 (in Battle Ground, a three-year plan passed in 2007), a total of seven Clark County districts will appeal to voters on the Feb. 9 ballot — all but Green Mountain and Hockinson districts.
That’s not likely to happen again, anytime soon.
Vancouver and Camas districts have announced they will seek three-year plans, the Washougal district, four years. And now, Evergreen will ask for two years.
Interestingly, ballot success would place Evergreen’s next levy appeal smack in the middle of the 2012 presidential race.
That’s normally a school campaign no-no.
“We’ll deal with what it is,” Deeder said. The greater risk is to miss levy authorization targets, he said.
Battle Ground, Ridgefield and La Center school districts are expected to soon finalize levy proposals, as is the Woodland district.
