Lakewood schools put levies on April 28 ballot

The Lakewood School District will try again with levies meant to retain current programs and staff, and improve building maintenance and technology.

The Programs and Operations levy and Capital and Technology levy were placed on the Feb. 11 ballot and received 44.99 percent support and 46.57 percent support respectively.

On Feb. 26 the Lakewood School District Board of Directors voted 5-0 to place those two measures on the April 28 Special Election ballot.

Both proposals would renew already existing levies, so they are not new taxes necessarily.

“I must continue to emphasize that these levies are not a new tax. Without these levies there will be program cuts … this is a reality, it is not a threat,” said Jahna Smith, Lakewood School Board president.

Although board members did acknowledge that financial concerns are real and troubling for many in the area.

“I feel for those people who don’t know if they have the financial resources to mark a ‘yes,’” said board member Leaha Boser. She encouraged people to remember that these taxes will go specifically to their community.

“We understand concerns about the burdens of taxes. I truly believe those battles need to be fought not at the expense of our students and our school district,” said Smith.

The current Educational Programs and Operations levy is set to expire at the end of 2020. It currently makes up around 14 percent of the district’s budget.

Those funds go toward staff and programs that the state does not fund or does not fully fund, such as athletics, band, clubs and mental health support staff.

The Programs and Operations levies are common for most school districts in the state who typically go out every four years to the voters for them.

The last time it passed in 2016 the district asked for a rate of $2.81 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

The state legislature recently began putting more funds into local districts and capped the rate of that levy to $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value, but after a year the state loosened that cap.

Now Lakewood officials are asking for what they can get under the current cap, which is $2.18 per $1,000 of assessed property value, less than the 2016 amount, but an increase over the current collections.

Because of the McCleary decision, which said the state legislature had to fully fund education, some residents are under the impression that the local levies are no longer needed, said Lakewood board member Larry Bean.

“The whole concept of the levies will remain given the current funding situation, if we want to keep the programs and operations that we have in place,” he said. “That’s one of the realities that we’ve all struggled with.”

The second levy would also continue a formerly passed measure.

The Technology and Capital Improvements levy would provide funds meant to continue the district’s investment in technology and provide funding for building maintenance.

The levy amount for this would not be an increase and would stay at $0.27 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

When the levy was passed the first time the district was more focused on technology, but this time the funds will be split about 50/50 between maintenance and technology.

Building maintenance is becoming more necessary in places like English Crossing Elementary, which has a heating system that runs on a single boiler.

“One of the things that we’re trying to do as part of the capital/tech levy is replace this boiler system with a double boiler system,” said Dale Leach, facilities supervisor for the district. “This is the most vulnerable school if we were to have a boiler shutdown,” and if that happened during the winter they could have to move the elementary’s classrooms to other schools.

Lakewood school officials said these levies are meant to meet the educational needs of local students.

“These levies were put together carefully to identify needs and we didn’t ask for fluff,” said Lakewood School District Superintendent Scott Peacock.

“As a member of the school board I have a civic duty to meet the educational needs of our district,” said Lakewood School Board member Sandy Gotts.

Officials hope they will be able to reach more of the voters for the April ballot than they were able to in February.

“This next time around the amount of community engagement is going to be at a significantly higher level,” said Peacock. “And designed to engage community members across the district in a way we did not last year so that people can be more informed and have thoughtful conversations."

School board members also heard a lot of people who misunderstood the measures or didn’t understand they were levy renewals.

“We want to respect the voters, but we also believe there was a miseducation out there about being ‘fully-funded’ and what that means,” said Boser.

“I think it is really getting the information out better to our community in exactly what these levies are, what they entail and what they mean to this district, and how much we rely on our community when it comes to levies,” said Gotts.

Other options and paths were considered rather than just putting both the levies on the ballot again, said Gotts, but in the end she said this was the best way to meet the needs of the district's students.

“There were other options, but we believe in this community and this is what we need to serve the students here, and that’s really the bottom line,” she said.