SEQUIM — Ballots will be mailed Jan. 22 to Sequim School District voters to determine if they want to fund both a new construction bond and renew an educational programs and operations levy in the Feb. 11 special election.
Sequim School District’s leaders voted to bring the resolutions to residents in December. The bond is the first for the district since a string of four failed attempts, the last of which was in February 2016, when a $54 million bond fell short (57.4 percent) of the required 60 percent supermajority to pass.
Superintendent Regan Nickels and district officials will discuss the proposals in a series of presentations and tours open to the public through January.
The meetings will take place at 11 a.m. Thursday in the district office board room, 503 N. Sequim Ave.; 7 p.m. Jan. 23 in the Sequim High School Library, 601 N. Sequim Ave., and 9 a.m. Jan. 28 and 1 p.m. Jan. 30, both in the district office board room.
Nickels said she also has several community gatherings at which she’s planning to speak.
District officials will open applications in early February for a bond oversight committee for community members to be part of the process, Nickels said.
It will convene if the bond is passed.
Bond proposal
For the bond proposal, the district’s board of directors accepted recommendations from a 13-member Long Range Facilities Planning Group (LRFPG) that collaborated with experts to evaluate schools’ structural integrity, safety and functionality to prioritize repairs and/or upgrades.
Nickels said the approximate $146 million bond will bring improvements to each district school, such as safety upgrades.
The bond proposes to:
• Replace Helen Haller Elementary School with a new building.
• Build new instructional wings at Sequim High School to connect to remaining buildings.
• Add a cafeteria at Greywolf Elementary School, update the bus loop and parking lot, and upgrade heating, ventilation and air condition (HVAC).
• Upgrade athletic field and facilities at the stadium with new surfacing, expand the track, and make bleachers, bathrooms, etc., compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Improve or replace the transportation center.
• Create a new bus loop through the school district’s main campus.
Meanwhile, district staff said the four-year, $36.2 million EP&O levy renewal would help fund teacher and staffing levels, extracurricular activities and athletics, library, music, counseling, nursing, transportation and more.
Nickels has said the district receives about 17 percent of its funding from local sources, such as the EP&O levy. It would require a simple majority to pass.
Costs
The total proposed bond amount is $151,150,000, and the school district will receive $5.2 million from the State Construction Assistance Program (SCAP) due to Helen Haller Elementary’s age to reduce the total to $145,950,000.
District staff said the new proposals’ combined rate with the 20-year bond ($0.91) and four-year levy rate ($0.94) would come to $1.85 per $1,000 of assessed property value. That’s for residents in the school district from R Corner to the west, to Gardiner in the east and Olympic National Park to the south.
District officials said the bond amount was determined through state and federal standards according to the district’s enrollment numbers and square footage standards per student.
With updated assessed property values at the end of 2024, district staff said the increase for the owner of a home valued at $340,000 would be $190.40 more per year, or $15.87 per month, starting in 2026. If a home is worth $481,000, it would cost $269.36 more per year, or $22.44 per month, staff estimated.
They said Sequim residents pay less in taxes for schools than about 80 percent of other districts in the state (ranked 236 out of 295), according to 2023 data, and the proposed $1.85 rate per $1,000 is less than the Port Angeles School District, which passed a construction bond and a levy renewal in November with a rate of about $2.70 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Design
Asked about preventative maintenance, Nickels said, “You’ve got to face we have such aged facilities.”
“You can’t change the oil forever,” said Mike Santos, Sequim School District’s director of facilities, operations and security. “Eventually the car is going to break.”
Helen Haller Elementary dates back to the 1970s. The high school’s five four-room pods A-E were built more than 50 years ago, and the oldest portion of the transportation center was built in 1967.
Santos said it would cost 1.8 times more to renovate than build a new high school and 1.6 times more for Helen Haller Elementary.
“That number is going to continue to go up,” he said.
Santos said a simple repair project elsewhere costs exponentially more at the school buildings because equipment and wiring are outdated, there is asbestos abatement and other factors would need to be brought up to code.
As for the conceptual design of where the buildings and bus loops will go, district staff said those are all works in progress.
“Everything is preliminary,” Nickels said.
“School districts don’t have any money for design until a bond passes.”
She said decisions on whether the athletic field would be turf or grass, if Helen Haller would be two stories and questions on other design elements are all to be determined.
“We have not convened any level of design group,” Nickels said. “We’ll seek input from different stakeholder groups, including staff.”
Through the bond process, the district was provided conceptual layouts by its consultant to help officials plan for needed square footage, Nickels said.
“Design will convene upon passage of the bond when the resources are available to do so, and engineering and architectural partners are hired,” she said.
Voters last approved a construction bond in February 1996 for $25 million to build Sequim Middle School, which opened in 1998, and with new classrooms (H-building) and a playfield at Sequim High School.
Sequim’s EP&O levies passed in their last five attempts.
Sequim’s $29.7 million four-year EP&O levy and an $18 million capital projects levy expire this year and were approved by voters in 2021.
The capital projects levy has paid for numerous items, such as roof replacement, HVAC system replacements, fire alarm and sprinkler system replacements, refurbishing the district stadium’s track and high school’s gym floor, and upgrades to the district’s technology infrastructure.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com. He has family employed and enrolled in Sequim School District.
