The way the fate of EHJR 4204 became a nail-biter, barely edging over the victory margin in late ballot counting, was beautifully ironic.
That’s just the way too many school levy requests win or lose, falling just a few votes short or above a tough 60 percent “yes” requirement.
Thanks to the apparent success of the constitutional amendment to allow school levies to pass with a simple majority, those nail-biting occasions should be far less frequent. That’s a big win for parents, teachers and schoolchildren in Washington.
For 20 years, public school advocates have been arguing that school levies have become too vital to school district budgets to require a higher bar than some other voter-approved taxes.
The supermajority requirement itself has caused a lot of close calls around the state. Districts usually don’t have any problem winning the support of a majority of voters; it’s the 60 percent supermajority that often proves too high a hurdle, as it did last year in Tacoma, where a repeat election was required.
Levies usually account for about 20 percent of a district’s budget. Defeat can mean teacher layoffs, higher class sizes, making do with older textbooks, reduced bus transportation and the cancellation of sports programs, among other things.
The kicker is that districts only get two tries in a given year to pass a levy, so school supporters must throw their all into getting the levy passed while school officials simultaneously plan for the big budget hit they’ll take if it doesn’t.
In the end, nearly 98 percent of school levies are approved, but at great cost. Districts have spent $2.7 million since 1999 to put levies on the ballot a second time. Tacoma paid $143,000 last year to rerun its levy, which voters approved. Neither figure includes the intangible costs of diverting attention from where it should be: the classroom.
Simple-majority critics are warning that the amendment’s passage could spark a taxpayer revolt. That’s a reach. The measure doesn’t raise anyone’s taxes; it simply allows more school districts to pass levies on their first attempts. The legal limits on how much levy money districts can request will remain the same, and construction bonds which create longer obligations will still be subject to the supermajority requirement.
The ballot box is where taxpayers usually register their complaints, and this week’s vote count shows that a majority of voters see the good sense of making it easier for local communities to provide vital support for schools.
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