Spokane Public Schools board weighs property tax measure for November or February ballots

May 26-Spokane Public Schools likely will ask voters to pass a property tax levy within a year.

Administrators shared estimates at a school board meeting last week on what could be headed to ballots in November or February to help fund operations for three years starting in 2028.

A proposed tax levy would generate, on average, $111 million each year by collecting an estimated rate of $2.50 per $1,000 in assessed property value, district Chief Financial Officer Cindy Coleman told the board.

Every three years the school district asks voters for a renewal on a property tax levy to pay for some educational programs and operations in the district. The levy constitutes about 15% of the district's revenue each year, spending the money on additional teachers, support staff, extracurriculars and everything else that falls beyond the state's definition of "basic education."

The current levy, which collects property taxes at a rate of $2.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value, is set to expire at the close of 2027. The proposed levy would replace it and continue the collection of levy dollars starting in 2028.

Without a levy, the district would have to cut some 400-500 positions, Superintendent Adam Swinyard told the board.

Swinyard already expects to cut 150 positions next school year due to cost increases - just as the district did last year.

He said the district will avoid layoffs and rely on attrition as it has done in previous years while "contracting" the budget, not filling open positions as staff retire or otherwise leave their jobs.

"There is no scenario in which we're not going to be reducing staff," Swinyard said. "That message to the community: that this is not about more, this is not about adding, this is not about extra. This is not whether or not we're going to cut, it's how much we're going to be reducing."

When considering payments voters already agreed to in previous tax requests, the total estimated tax rate from the district would be $4.15 per $1,000 in 2028 and 2029, moving up to $4.17 in 2030.

That's an increase from the projected rate in 2027, which is $3.96.

Combined with state-imposed property taxes that go to schools, a property owner in Spokane Schools district would pay an estimated rate of around $6.36 per $1,000 in years 2028 to 2030.

The estimated rates could fluctuate as property values do, Coleman said, but the $2.50 rate is the highest the district can legally collect with a levy. Districts also are limited to collect the total amount in taxes that they put on ballots, not the rate, regardless of how home values change.

"There are statutory requirements on what rate we can actually collect," Swinyard said. "That rate then is impacted by property values going up and down, so if property value goes up, then the rate could go down, because you're spreading that total dollar amount out through a larger tax base. If the property value goes down, then there's the inverse reaction to the rate, because now you have a smaller base that you're drawing that dollar amount from."

The board made no decisions on when to run the levy, weighing the pros and cons between November or February ballots. The board members likely will reconsider their options at the next board meeting in June.

February is historically when the school district has run its levies, but November is reliable for stronger voter turnout, especially in a midterm election year, Swinyard said.

Though other measures haven't been filed, district leaders also consider what other tax requests will be sought. Ballot composition is harder than ever to predict, Swinyard said.

"There are conversations about a safety, health, jail tax being floated around. There is talk about city libraries going out again," he said.

A February ballot measure wouldn't give the district another shot at the levy if it fails before they have to issue layoff notices, Coleman said.

Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.

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This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 11:48 PM.