SEQUIM – In their campaign to pass a replacement levy to fund Sequim’s five public schools, E. Michael McAleer and Sarah Bedinger were thrown a bit of a curve.
McAleer and Bedinger are leaders of Citizens for Sequim Schools, a coalition hoping to pass a replacement levy for the Sequim School District in the Feb. 9 election.
The proposed levy is a renewal, with increases, of the current four-year levy to expire at the end of 2010.
The new tax will go before voters in Sequim, Blyn, Gardiner and the area between Sequim and Blue Mountain Road.
For the current levy, passed in early 2006, Sequim-area property owners pay 72.1 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation. The owner of a $250,000 home, for example, is now paying $180.25 a year in property tax.
Last fall, the Sequim school board voted to put a three-year replacement levy on the ballot, to raise $4.05 million in 2011, then $4.9 million in 2012 and finally $5.78 million in 2013.
Levy rates
Using previous reports of the total assessed property values across the Sequim School District, the board initially set levy rates for each of the next three years.
In 2011, the rate was to be 87 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation. That would have meant an increase of $37.25 per thousand from the levy that’s in place now.
In 2012, the rate was to rise to $1.03, and in 2013 it would have topped out at $1.18 per thousand.
But then came the curve ball. Clallam County Assessor Pam Rushton told the school district officials that property values in and around Sequim fell about 1 percent during 2009.
So in order for the levy to reap that $4.05 million next year, the tax rate would have to be higher.
This took Brian Lewis, the school district’s business manager, by surprise.
“We’ve had 16 years of [yearly] growth in assessed valuation,” Lewis said, adding that 2009 was the first year in that time frame when home values dipped.
So to ensure that it brings in the set amount of levy dollars, the school board opted to raise the rate to 98 cents per $1,000 in assessed value during 2011, and then to $1.19 in 2012 and to $1.40 per thousand in 2013.
The new levy would increase property tax rates, but not necessarily raise taxes. The rates will be adjusted over the coming three years, to raise the exact levy amounts of $4.05 million in 2011 and so on. If home values go down, the rate rises; if they increase, the rate comes down.
So, McAleer said, as assessed property values dip, so will taxes, even with the higher levy rates.
Presentation on levy
Now McAleer, along with Bedinger and Virginia O’Neil — who are members of the school board as well as of Citizens for Sequim Schools — are preparing a presentation on the proposed levy and what it means for public education in Sequim.
Their talk, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Clallam County, is set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Sequim Library, 630 N. Sequim Ave.
The 45-minute presentation will include a list of programs to be paid for by the levy.
In the first year, 2011, the largest piece would go to hire more teachers, to shrink class sizes. Textbooks and technology are also high on the priority list.
In 2012, special education teachers, teacher training, supplies and programs for gifted students would be funded.
And in 2013, levy dollars would restore the district’s school nurse, school police officer and a high school guidance counselor.
The funding also would help pay for work on school buildings, among other long-deferred projects.
These teaching positions and programs are among those cut from the district budget during 2009, when Sequim was among the many school systems suffering from deep reductions in state funding.
A complete list of levy-funded school programs is available on the district’s Web site, www.Sequim.k12.wa.us. More levy information is also at Citizens for Sequim Schools’ site, www.SequimSchools.com.
McAleer emphasized that all of the proposed levy rates over the coming three years are well below the state average, which is $1.78 per $1,000 assessed value.
Local support in the form of a levy is sorely needed, he said. Nearly all of Washington’s school districts use levies to pay teachers, buy books and keep up their facilities.
“State and federal funds,” meanwhile, “provide only the bare bones” for public schools.
Annette Hanson, the Sequim district’s information officer, stressed that the proposed levy is not a new tax, but a renewal of the levy voters passed in early 2006.
“It will help us continue what we’re doing,” in Sequim schools, Hanson said.
The school levy is an investment in which each community member has a share, McAleer added.
“Sequim schools have been underfunded for years,” he said.
Yet McAleer is optimistic that the higher levy will win voters’ endorsement.
“I think people know it’s a good investment,” he said.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
