It’s a game of catch-up, with much at stake.
Battle Ground Public Schools asks voters to approve a three-year maintenance and operations tax levy that would raise $64.6 million total in 2011-13.
It would replace a three-year M&O levy worth a total $38.2 million that expires this year.
That’s a 69 percent increase in total taxes assessed over a three-year period. And a 49.6 percent increase, just from the year 2010 to 2011.
Where individual property rates might land is uncertain, driven by districtwide assessed values and whatever new growth and development may occur.
Still, Battle Ground estimates a per-thousand dollar tax rate of $2.99 in 2011, compared to about $2.21 this year.
That means a home worth $200,000 in 2011 would be charged $598, compared to $442 this year for a home worth $200,000.
“This is what we need to continue operating,” said Shonny Bria, Battle Ground superintendent.
“I’m going to reiterate: I want to keep this school district at a viable level,” Bria said. Fresh state spending reductions loom — as much as $7 million for 2010-11, if proposed cuts in teacher funds (used to hire more instructors, to limit class size) and levy equalization dollars (to boost school districts with a subpar tax base) go through.
That would come after Battle Ground last year set an operating budget nearly 2 percent smaller than in 2008-09, eliminating 20 teacher positions even as all employee groups took a 4-percent cut in take-home pay.
No wonder rumors persist the district straddles thin fiscal ice.
“We don’t have a reserve fund,” Bria said. “We used that when we were in our double-levy failure.” (Battle Ground collected no local taxes in 2007, after voters twice rejected levy measures the year before).
‘Levy lid’
Here’s the underlying reason Battle Ground seeks a quantum leap: The district has fallen far shy, increasingly so, of the local tax collection limit or “levy lid” set by Washington state law.
Local levies and state levy equalization dollars, divvied by formula, may generate a combined 24 percent of a district’s operating budget (the rest comes from state and federal dollars).
Other Clark County districts generate 16 percent, 17 percent, even 19 percent, from voter-backed levies. Add equalization dollars, and most attain or nearly hit the 24 percent mark.
Not Battle Ground: Its 2010 levy nets about 12 percent of its current $114.5 million budget. Levy equalization funds will add 3.4 percent more, pushing the total just past 15 percent.
So, there’s the wide gap Battle Ground is trying to close.
The $20.5 million the district asks for 2011 would draw about 18 percent of its budget, with about 3-to-4 percent in levy equalization support due. That at least pulls the district within sight of 24 percent, officials say.
“Between the (budget) cuts and a levy that’s half the amount of everyone else, we’re behind our curve,” Bria said. “Most districts around us have always hit that. … Battle Ground hasn’t. It’s always just asked for what it could.”
Watchdog’s view
Bria said the school board has forged a strategic plan that calls for investment in new teachers to maintain smaller class size; better building security, safety and maintenance; new classroom technology support and teacher training; and closure of a yearly $2.5 million shortfall in busing costs.
“The board came up with a strategic plan, and this levy supports that,” she said. The plan was vetted with feedback at community forums, she added.
Question is, can distressed Battle Ground voters afford to help put the district in line with its peers?
Not according to Russ Wad-leigh, longtime watchdog and critic of many school district decisions. He said the district has shortchanged students with program cuts while administrative costs outpace state averages. Meantime, most students continue to fail state assessment exams, he said.
“They’re not doing their job. Why should they be taxing us the way school districts that actually perform tax their people?” Wadleigh said. “They wouldn’t have dared asked for this if the 60 percent (supermajority) margin was still there,” he said.
‘Emotions’ run high
After Battle Ground, the Vancouver and Evergreen districts seek the largest gains in local levy dollars: Vancouver, about 5 percent each of the next three years; Evergreen, a 6 percent hike in 2011 and then 1.7 percent in 2012.
Officials in the county’s two largest districts make no bones about reaching for 24 percent.
“The state is shifting more responsibility to the local taxpayers,” said Steve Olsen, Vancouver’s budget director. The district fears losing between $6 million and $15 million in state spending for 2010-11, and federal stimulus money also could dry up soon, he said.
“That makes the local component even more important,” Olsen said. Vancouver’s suggested levy hike is modest in the context of its annual operating budget, he said: “I don’t feel bad about less than a 1 percent increase, considering we’re a ($214) million budget.”
Mike Merlino, Evergreen budget director, anticipates state cutbacks at $6 million to $8 million. He also penciled in 24 percent for a levy goal. “That’s what we’ve always targeted,” he said.
It’s clear what the three districts want. Less so, how voters will respond in light of soaring unemployment as property values drop (and corresponding tax rates rise).
“This is a complicated one,” Olsen said. “There’s a lot of emotions tied to it.”
Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.
