Pasco bond for 3rd high school now up 200+ votes. Is it in the bag?
Pasco School District voters have approved a bond to build a new high school and career academy, according to the latest ballot count.
The 21-year, $195.5 million measure was trailing on election night by 108 votes. But about 1,600 votes counted on Wednesday put the measure 212 votes ahead of the 60% supermajority needed to pass.
Approval now stands at 60.78%, or 6,646 yes votes, to 39.22%, or 4,289 no votes.
The Franklin County election officials estimated there are just 150 ballots left to count.
“I don’t see it changing the results, especially since the late vote seems to be really heavily in favor,” said David Jones, treasurer of the Pasco Votes for Schools campaign.
This is the first time in 17 years that Pasco has passed a bond measure on its first try.
With the bond’s passage, Pasco School District plans to build and open two new schools in fall 2025.
A new comprehensive high school near the intersection of Burns Road and Road 60 will serve 2,000 students and ease crowding at Chiawana and Pasco high schools.
A career and college academy in east Pasco will serve 600 high schoolers, who will graduate ready for the workforce with credentials, industry certifications and hands-on experience.
The bond will also pay for improvements to existing athletic facilities and to help rejuvenate career technical education classrooms at Pasco and Chiawana high schools.
Property owners will be taxed an additional 31 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. That’s about $93 annually for a home valued at $300,000.
One of the state of Washington’s fastest-growing communities, Pasco will likely grow by another 50,000 people over the next 20 years.
Already since 2000, student enrollment has more than doubled in Pasco schools.
And Chiawana High School — the state’s largest public high school — is bursting at the seams.
Last summer, the district added six portables to the campus. About 1,800 high schoolers are being taught this school year in portables between both Chiawana and Pasco High School, the state’s sixth-largest high school.
Pasco Votes for Schools took a more digital approach to campaigning this cycle by targeting supporters through Facebook in a peer-to-peer campaign strategy and scraping public data available online.
Comparing results from last year’s levy, which passed with nearly 55% approval, Jones estimated they needed to pick up 1,200 “yes” votes to get the bond passed this election cycle. Volunteers reached out to nearly 900 voters over the course of three weeks, statistics from the campaign’s website show.
“I think the individual outreach model as opposed to broad, blanket outreach model, I think that worked,” Jones said.
If the bond failed, Pasco School District would have been forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to run the bond again.
“It’s definitely not something taxpayers should have to pay for multiple times. I think it’s great we get to do this the first time, do things the right way, and not mess around with running bonds multiple times,” Jones said.
▪ In Benton County, all school operating levies — Kennewick, Finley, Kiona-Benton City, Paterson — were still passing with the required 50% plus 1 majority on Wednesday evening after more ballots were tallied.
Richland’s capital levy was also passing. It will modernize older schools with secure entrances, support staff safety training, pay for the purchase of new surveillance systems at schools, and fund design and development work for a third comprehensive high school to be located in West Richland.
Across the state, 43 of 49 school levy measures set for the Feb. 14 special election were passing, said Washington Superintendent Chris Reykdal.
And Pasco’s bond was the only one in Washington that was passing. Seven other school districts also proposed capital bonds to their voters, and they were failing to meet the 60% threshold.
“Bond projects get state matching funds and they are progressive — the lower your property values, the higher the state match,” Reykdal tweeted. “Some get 80%+ match. So failing to get to the supermajority shuts out state funds for school construction and jobs. We need a simple majority fix!”
This story was originally published February 15, 2023 at 7:08 PM.
