Voter-approved school levies that for the past six years have helped Seattle Public Schools pay for essentials such as roofing and seismic improvements, computer work stations and renovated libraries, are expiring. And now the district has begun a full-court press to inform Seattleites about extending the multi-million-dollar levies that would be funded by property taxes up until 2016.
Seattle voters will have the opportunity to decide Feb. 9. Seattleites have already received absentee ballots for the levies. A yes vote for the Capital or Building, Technology and Academic Levy, means voters are willing to give 35-cents per $1,000 of the assessed value of their homes in 2011, which the district estimates would bring in approximately $45 million. The rate graduates down to 27 cents by 2016, a rate that is buoyed by the projected increase in Seattle property values over the next seven years.
With the projected $270 million, the district would like to continue working on what has become a backlog of maintenance projects such as roof replacements, seismic upgrades, fire suppression/sprinkler systems, HVAC systems, preventive maintenance and painting, ground-source heat pumps (one at John Hay Elementary School), high-efficiency boilers and waterlines for 13 buildings including Catharine Blaine K-8. Blaine's waterline wouldn't go in until 2017, but is scheduled for roof and seismic upgrades in 2011. John Hay Elementary School will be receiving a new HVAC system and roof by 2014. Coe and Lawton elementary schools as well as McClure Middle School and the Center School have no capital projects scheduled in the new levy.
The district would also like to continue with $34.9 million in technology programs such as replacing aging PCs, increase network capacity/bandwidth district wide, upgrade classroom technology and improve the district's Web site. A little more than $15 million will go toward infrastructure improvements such as Wi-fi, at all schools and the central office.
The district would also like to spend about $95 million on an improved, real-time student assessment system, special education improvements, the addition of science and computer labs at high schools, and spending $48.1 million on getting five buildings up and ready by 2012 - including the Old Hay building, which will now be called Queen Anne Elementary School.
Along with the Capital Levy, the school district wants voters to pass an operations levy, which is also on the Feb. 9 ballot. In this levy, voters would be asked to give as much as $1.11 per $1,000 of the assessed value of their homes over the next three years. With projected funding of $442.7 million, this levy would pay for teachers and instructional assistant, full-day kindergarten programs, a six-period day at high schools (the state currently funds five periods), textbooks and bus transportation
Nearly one-quarter of the districts' $531 million budget is funded by the operations levy. Fifty-three percent of the district's budget comes from the state, but officials with the district are projecting an $84-million loss in state funding over the next four years. But Duggan Harman, the district's executive director of finance, is hopeful.
"We're hoping that by March 12," Harman said, "we will have some restorations from the state budget."
The state Legislature is currently working on House Bill 2261, which would extend the definition of education to kindergarten and special education, and thereby provide more funding for schools statewide.[[In-content Ad]]
