Local school districts send levies to voters

School funding measures for Marysville and Lakewood will be on the ballot being mailed out now for the April 26 special election.

Ballots are can be dropped off by 8 p.m. at the ballot drop boxes. A drop box is available in Lakewood at 16800 16th Dr. NE in the parking lot near Lakewood Middle School, and in Marysville at City Hall at 1049 State Ave. and Grove Elementary at 6510 Grove St.

For this election, a same-day voter registration location will be available at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Smokey Point at 16710 Smokey Point Blvd., Arlington.

Lakewood School District

A replacement Technology and Facilities Improvement levy will be on the ballot for Lakewood voters.

The levy funds would replace the current technology and facilities improvement levy which will end at the beginning of 2023.

The estimated property tax rate for the levy would be $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

That would be an increase of about $0.09 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

After previous levy failures the Lakewood School Board opted to run the previous 2020 levy at a reduced rate and focus only on funding student technology needs, while deferring building maintenance needs to the future.

The school district hopes to regain those funds now to begin facility improvements and maintenance projects again.

In addition to those building improvement needs, the levy funds technology for students.

That includes the purchase and maintenance of 2,000 student devices and 200 staff devices for $805,000, software licensing agreements for $200,000 and phone system upgrades in the schools for $150,000.

Marysville School District

Marysville schools will try again with a reduced Educational Programs and Operations levy and a Technology and Capital Projects Levy this April.

The two levies are meant to replace two existing levy measures that will end at the beginning of 2023.

Voters had previously rejected both measures during the Feb. 8 special election with 59.28 percent of voters against the Educational Programs and Operations levy and 56.47 percent of voters against the Technology and Capital Projects levy.

The Marysville School Board reduced the tax rates of both proposals before sending them out to the voters again.

The new estimated property tax rates are $1.97 per $1,000 of assessed property value for the Educational Programs and Operations levy and $0.26 per $1,000 of assessed property value for the Technology and Capital Projects levy.

That represents a combined reduction of about $0.87 per $1,000 of assessed property value from the previous levy proposals.

The Educational Programs and Operations levy pays for a number of items across the district that the state does not fully fund, including athletic programs, extracurricular activities, smaller class sizes and additional nurses, librarians and counselors.

The Technology and Capital Projects levy pays for technology hardware, such as the Chromebooks that Marysville secondary school students are provided, and for the licenses for software for those devices.