Puyallup has an $800 million school bond on the ballot. Early election results are in
Update Feb. 12: As of Wednesday afternoon, 63 percent (15,947) of the votes are for the proposal and 37 percent (9,224) are against it. That’s 25,171 ballots, which is still short of the 28,216 required for the measure to pass. Elections officials will release the next round of results at 4 p.m. Thursday, and the final release will be at noon on Feb. 21.
Initial post: Puyallup’s $800 million school bond has the support of a supermajority of residents who voted, but it might not reach the turnout threshold to pass, early elections results showed Tuesday night.
So far, 62 percent (12,493) of the votes are for the proposal, with 38 percent (7,576) against it.
It needs 60 percent to pass and a turnout of at least 28,216 voters (40 percent of the last general election, which is a higher barrier to clear following a presidential election year).
The school district has 91,470 voters and had received 20,206 ballots as of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office.
Voters in the special election had to postmark their ballots by Tuesday or get their ballots to a drop box by 8 p.m., which means more ballots will be counted in the days ahead. Elections officials will release the next round of results at 4 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Auditor’s Office website. They will release another batch at 4 p.m. Thursday, and the final release will be at noon on Feb. 21.
Puyallup resident Ellen Aronson, who was part of the “yes” committee supporting the bond proposal, told The News Tribune on Tuesday night that she was “thrilled” with the 62 percent approval and concerned about whether enough of the more 71,000 residents who hadn’t turned in their ballots as of 12:30 p.m. got them in by the 8 p.m. deadline.
“Can we get between 8,000 and 9,000 votes in today and postmarked?” she said. “I don’t know. It’s going to be really close.”
The funding would build a new elementary school on land the district owns above Emerald Ridge High School. It also would rebuild Spinning, Waller Road and Mt. View elementary schools and expand Emerald Ridge, Puyallup and Rogers high schools.
The “yes” committee waved signs in the cold Tuesday, reached out on social media and sent last-minute text messages and a mailer to encourage residents to vote.
There wasn’t a “no” campaign against the proposal in the voters’ pamphlet.
“Even if we don’t get over the line, the projects and the need don’t go away,” Aronson said.
District officials said the measure would not raise the tax rate beyond what voters approved last year as part of a six-year $175 million capital levy.
Voters agreed to a property-tax rate increase from $3.27 to $4.14 per $1,000 of assessed value (an additional $36.25 per month for the owner of a $500,000 home). That rate takes effect this year. If voters pass the bond, they’d maintain that same property tax rate for 21 years.
The district would take $130 million of the capital levy funds and refinance it as part of the $800 million bond.
District would consider closing aging schools without the funding
District officials said they would have to consider closing some aging schools if the bond doesn’t pass, including Spinning, which was built in 1935.
“The building is at the end of its life,” Spinning principal Sari Burnett told The News Tribune last month.
If they did close Spinning and Waller in the next couple years, those students would have to go to other schools in the district. The district has about 23,000 students across its 34 schools and expects its student body to grow by 1,000 students over the next 10 years. It uses 221 portable classrooms.
“Puyallup is a growing community, and our schools are already kind of at the max,” Aronson told The News Tribune last month.
The last bond voters approved for the school district was 10 years ago, in 2015. A 2019 bond that would have expanded the high schools failed.
Aronson was part of the district’s capital facilities advisory committee that put the new bond proposal together, and she has two students in the district, a 15-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.
Aronson watched the results come in at home Tuesday night with her son. She immediately texted her book club, she said.
“I’ve been bugging them for weeks to turn in their ballots and tell all their friends,” she said. “I texted them first to say we got the 62 percent.”
She said she expects school district leaders will meet in the coming weeks to discuss whether they’d put the bond package before voters again in a future election, if they don’t meet the turnout threshold.
“The ‘yes’ committee will be here to support what comes next,” she said.
News Tribune archives contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that the capital levy passed in 2024 increased the tax rate from $3.27 to $4.14 per $1,000 of assessed value, which means the owner of a $500,000 home would pay an additional $36.25 per month starting this year.
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 8:29 PM.
