Pasco School Board to ask voters for $64M bond in February

Four years after passing a bond, Pasco voters will again be asked to help their school district build new and expanded schools, this time to the tune of at least $64 million.

The Pasco School Board selected a bond project list this week that would pay for a new west Pasco elementary school, replace and expand Stevens Middle School, add classrooms to Chiawana High School and Marie Curie STEM Elementary School and other needs.

The bond will go on the February 2017 ballot. If approved, it would increase tax bills by an estimated 46 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value, or about $69 a year for a house assessed at $150,000.

Board members also opted to add another elementary school project to the list. That will boost the bond by up to $10 million, but only if the district receives a potential state grant aimed at helping districts lower class sizes by building additional classrooms.

A few board members characterized the project list as a compromise.

Amy Phillips and Aaron Richardson said they also wanted to build a fourth middle school and do more to address crowding in the east end elementary schools. But all board members but Richardson said adding those projects would make the bond too expensive and voters might reject it.

“I’m disappointed and frustrated I’m in the minority,” Richardson said during a study session on the bond before the board’s regular meeting. “The more teachers and parents I talk to, the more I feel doing something with Stevens and another middle school is our best way forward.”

Pasco schools are expected to add 700 to 1,100 students by 2020, much of that in the seventh- through 12th-grades.

Overcrowding in the elementary schools continues to be a problem, despite the opening of three new elementary schools paid for by the bond approved in 2013. Board members said that makes getting voter approval for this new bond critical and the cost needs to be as low as possible.

“We don’t as desperately need a middle school as much as a new elementary school or classrooms at Chiawana High School,” Phillips said.

The board has looked at numerous bond possibilities in study sessions for weeks. Those discussions came on the heels of recommendations from an appointed facilities task force of citizens, teachers and administrators studying what building projects are most needed.

The task force’s report said the replacement of Stevens and the addition of two new elementary schools should be the highest priorities and that a bond should be put before voters as soon as possible.

Doing all the projects recommended by the task force would have required a estimated $92 million bond, about double the size of the $46.8 million approved in 2013. That bond paid for Barbara McClintock, Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie STEM elementary schools, as well as other projects around the district.

Cost to taxpayers weighed heavily in the board’s bond discussions.

One bond proposal included building a new middle school as well as replacing Stevens. That would have required $87.1 million, adding about 62 cents for every $1,000 in assessed property value to tax bills.

“I don’t know if that will pass, it’s very high,” Phillips said. “We’re the highest taxed city in the Tri-Cities.”

“I think there are a lot of people who will see the value in getting that fourth middle school built,” Richardson countered.

But the board was unanimous in wanting to add the second elementary project if the state grant comes through.

Pasco was ranked just a few points outside the 20 districts around the state that received money. The Kennewick School District receiving $51 million.

There’s a possibility the Legislature could put more money toward the K-3 grants in the next legislative session, and it’s good planning to have money set aside in the bond to take advantage of that possibility, board members said.

“We’re going to have to tell people this is a maybe,” said board Vice President Steve Christensen, noting the district will have to be diligent in explaining the bond to voters.

This story was originally published May 25, 2016 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Pasco School Board to ask voters for $64M bond in February."