Sultan school district looks at options after bond fails

SULTAN — A school board member here was behind a campaign that urged voters to reject a school bond on the Feb. 9 ballot.

Ed Husmann opposed the Sultan School District’s request for a $47.7 million bond, he said, because the board didn’t do its homework before asking taxpayers for the money.

The 25-year bond was rejected by almost 57 percent of voters. It would have raised tax rates from 27 cents per $1,000 assessed property value to $2.40.

Husmann took a stand against the tax hike, which would have been from about $68 to $600 a year for the owner of a $250,000 home, by putting up a website and signs.

Now, Sultan is going back to the drawing board.

The five-member school board Monday discussed prioritizing school needs and finding ways to pay for them.

The district wanted to spend about $57 million to update four schools and construct a new staff building. The money would have come from passage of the bond and a state construction match it would have generated.

Superintendent Dan Chaplik suspects voters rejected it due to the pricetag, different ideas about the district’s needs versus its wants and the anti-bond campaign.

“When it comes out the way it did, there’s problems — no doubt about it,” he said.

Last year, a group of about 30 residents and staff looked into upgrades at Sultan schools and decided what to include in the bond. “There’s no shortage of ideas when they’re spending someone else’s money,” said Husmann, a school board member since 2011. “Obviously, there were a lot of people having second thoughts about this being for the children.”

Debbie Copple, the longtime Sky Valley Chamber of Commerce director, said it’s a shame the bond didn’t pass because putting off needs won’t make them any cheaper.

“I’m very disappointed,” she said. “It seems to be the way it is. We always fail the first time.”

In the future, before taxpayers are asked to pay for improvements, Husmann wants the school board investigate whether the items proposed by the group are needed and if there are other ways to pay for them. He particularly took issue with spending bond money to build a performing arts center at Sultan High School.

The Sultan apple farmer acknowledged the need for a new bus barn and safety improvements, but doubted the listed cost of replacing elementary school roofs.

Husmann questions putting money into teaching technology in public schools. He said he doesn’t know of any students without access to a computer outside of the classroom.

“I don’t know that our children need technology more than they need common sense,” said Husmann, 76. The former teacher and retired pilot said he doesn’t know what’s needed to improve education but is sure more money isn’t the answer.

The district has a $23 million annual operating budget to serve about 2,000 students.

Chaplik, superintendent since 2007, said the district will start talking to people to find out how much taxpayers are willing to spend on schools and what they’d agree to pay for.

A capital levy could be considered to pay for some immediate needs until there’s support for a bond. Chaplik said the most pressing issues are leaking roofs at the two elementary schools and outfitting the district’s buildings to handle computers and technology.

Sultan voters last passed a bond in 1998 to pay for capital improvements that were not covered by operating budgets and levy money. A four-year maintenance and operations levy was approved in 2014 to help cover the cost of running schools.

Some of the district’s past bonds were paid off or refinanced between 2000 and 2008, which lowered the tax rate during the past 16 years to 27 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, from $2.17. The three remaining bonds are to expire in 2017.

Chaplik wants to have neighborhood meetings to help understand why the Feb. 9 bond was rejected and inform voters about needs across the district.

“The schools are a community asset,” he said, “There’s a certain responsibility to keep them up.”

Meanwhile, without the bond money, teachers will have to find creative ways to educate students, Sultan High School Principal Tami Nesting said. “We’ll just make it work.”

Amy Nile: 425-339-3192; anile@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @AmyNileReports