PORT TOWNSEND — Ballots are going out in today’s mail for Feb. 9 levy elections in Brinnon and Sequim school districts.
The Brinnon School District two-year maintenance and operations replacement levy ballot measure asks voters to approve the levy and raise $572,000 over two years starting in 2011, said school board Chairwoman Val Schindler.
The Sequim School District levy measure will, if approved by voters, raise $4.05 million for Sequim’s public schools next year, $4.9 million in 2012 and $5.78 million in 2013.
Voters in the districts should see those mail-in ballots this week, said Jefferson County elections official Betty Johnson. Ballots must be returned by Feb. 9.
Johnson said that 956 ballots were mailed out to Brinnon School District voters.
The district has 28 kindergarten to eighth-grade students at Brinnon School.
“We’re very much trying to consider our constituents,” Schindler said, stressing the replacement that would not raise taxes but does include a 5.5 percent cost-of-living increase in 2012.
Property owners would be taxed at a rate of $1.04 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, which would go up to $1.10 percent $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2012.
A homeowner with a home valued at $200,000, for example, would pay $208 a year, which would increase to $220 in 2012.
That would raise $278,885 for 2011 and $293,661 to be collected in 2012.
The levy replaces an existing levy that expires this year, with levy money going toward textbooks, supplies and unfunded special education requirements.
It also covers the cost of sending Brinnon students to neighboring districts, such as Quilcene High School.
Sequim district
The Sequim district stretches from Blue Mountain Road through Sequim to Gardiner.
Sequim’s proposed levy replaces the current one –which expires at the end of this year — and raises the tax rate.
The 2010 levy rate is at 77 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation, so the owner of a $250,000 home is paying $192.50 this year toward public education in the Sequim district.
The proposed rate in 2011 is 98 cents per $1,000, so if the levy measure is approved, that homeowner will pay $52.50 more, for a property tax bill of $245 next year.
The proposed rate for 2012 is $1.19 per thousand, or $297.50 for the $250,000 home. In 2013, the rate peaks at $1.40, for $350 in property taxes.
The Sequim School District Board of Directors and the Citizens for Sequim Schools advocacy coalition, have said that levy dollars will pay teachers’ salaries, fund an after-school homework-help program and restore positions, such as the school nurse, that were cut when state funding was slashed last year. The higher levy is necessary, advocates say, in the wake of deep cuts in staffing, supplies, technology and extracurricular activities.
If the levy doesn’t pass this February, Sequim school board president Sarah Bedinger added, the board will try again by placing another levy proposal on the ballot.
April 27 is the soonest another levy election could be held, said Clallam County Elections Supervisor Shoona Radon. The school board would have to file its resolution by March 12, she added.
More information about the Sequim measure is available on the school district’s Web site, www.Sequim.k12.wa.us.
Drainage district
A Feb. 2 election has voters choosing from two candidates for the Position 3 Port Ludlow Drainage District seat.
Stan Kadesh is challenging incumbent Leland Amundson for a six-year term. Ballots for that election were sent out last Wednesday, Johnson said.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.