EVERETT — Everett Public Schools could ask voters to approve a nearly $400 million bond measure to pay for a new school and major renovations across the district, officials said at a board meeting Tuesday.
The new school, a $97.7 million elementary, would be located in the southern part of the district, which includes the city of Everett as well as parts of unincorporated Snohomish County and Mill Creek.
The bond proceeds would also pay for a $90.8 million complete replacement of Lowell Elementary school, as well as 12 new permanent elementary classrooms throughout the district, at a cost of $22 million.
Those elementary improvements are necessary to handle an overcrowding problem across the district’s elementary schools, officials said Tuesday. Across the district’s elementary schools, there are over 100 portable classrooms holding classes every day, said the Everett Public Schools chief operating officer, Larry Fleckenstein.
“That’s 2.5 elementaries worth of students in portables,” he said Tuesday.
Other construction projects would include the $73 million replacement of a building on the Cascade High School campus and a modernization of the Everett High School vocational building. The bond would also pay for $39 million to go toward Cascade’s career technical education program.
Other projects would include roofing replacements, heating and cooling upgrades, electrical upgrades and two new synthetic track and fields at middle schools.
Bond measures provide school districts with money for construction projects and capital improvement. They’re paid off over time through property taxes. A capital bond planning committee made up of community members, high school students and district staff spent months putting together a recommendation to the superintendent, laying out what projects should be funded.
District officials had previously sought school bonds in 2018 and 2020. Both measures earned the majority of the vote but failed to earn the 60% supermajority state law requires to approve a bond measure.
The 2018 bond would have paid for a new high school in the district to relieve overcrowding at Jackson High School in Mill Creek, among other projects. The 2020 bond would have funded the replacement of three elementary schools and 36 new elementary classrooms, along with other renovations.
After those two measures failed to pass, the district found success in 2022 with a $325 million capital levy that paid to replace two elementary schools and provide a laptop or Chromebook to every student. Previous bond measures had included funding to replace Lowell Elementary, but the 2022 capital bond removed it to keep costs down, Fleckenstein said. That funding is now included in the proposed 2026 bond measure.
The district is also set to ask voters to approve an educational levy, the ongoing source of local funding that pays for athletic programs, extra-curricular clubs, summer school and dual language programs, among others, that aren’t funded by the state. Those levies are renewed every four years.
Without the levy funds, the district would have to make cuts to balance its budget beginning in 2027, said Andi Tress, the executive director of finance at Everett Public Schools.
If approved, the levy’s property tax rate would rise to $2.14 per $1,000 of assessed value beginning in 2027, up from the $1.95 per $1,000 voters approved in 2022. That rate has since decreased to $1.85 per $1,000 in 2025 due to a state cap on property tax increases. The new bond would add a tax bill of about $1 per $1,000 of assessed value beginning in 2029.
In total, school district taxes would increase from $3.64 per $1,000 this year to $3.95 per $1,000 through at least 2035, about an 8% hike, according to the district. A portion of the increase from the new capital bond would be offset by lower tax rates from the district’s 2022 capital levy increase, Tress said.
The school board is expected to vote on whether to send the bond and levy to voters at its Oct. 14 meeting. If approved by the school board, the bond and levy measures would appear on the Feb. 10 special election ballot.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
