With less than 100 votes dealing failure for Battle Ground Public Schools’ Educational Programs and Operations (EP&O) replacement levy in the Feb. 11 special election, the Battle Ground School Board in a special meeting on Feb. 19 approved a measure to place the exact same proposal on the April special election ballot.
If voters approve the levy in its second run, it would replace the expiring EP&O levy, which ends in December 2025. The replacement levy would begin in 2026 and end after 2029. If approved, voters would pay an estimated $1.95 per $1,000 of assessed property value for each year of collection. In 2021, voters approved an EP&O levy at a rate of $1.99 per $1,000 of assessed property value, but that levy began at $1.97 in its first year.
Educational programs and operations levies fill the gap between what the school district receives from state funding and what it actually costs to educate students, the district said in a news release. Currently, the estimated difference between state funding and the annual cost for the district is $40.8 million.
Battle Ground Public Schools Superintendent Denny Waters said the move to place the exact same proposal on the next special election ballot is to ensure the district gets exactly what is needed.
“I think the community needs to understand that when we went out for the first levy, we asked for what we needed. There’s no fluff in that ask,” he said. “The ask was exactly what we need in order to continue to run the programs that we currently have, and that need hasn’t changed.”
If the school district were to place a levy with a lower ask, then Waters and the district would have to make cuts.
“For us to go for a lower amount would still mean that we would have to make cuts, and I don’t think that’s what our community wants us to do is to run a levy, pass a levy, and then say, ‘Oh, and by the way, we just passed the levy and we’re going to cut A, B and C,’” Waters said. “So that’s the thinking there. I continue to hope that our community will do their homework and look at what other districts are charging in terms of the overall school tax rate and see that Battle Ground school district is the lowest comprehensive K-12 provider in the county in terms of our tax rate.”
Waters pointed out other districts in the county that have a levy but will still be making $15 to $20 million in cuts next year anyways, which Battle Ground Public Schools is striving to avoid. He added that the district would be making the same cuts if the April levy proposal ends in a double failure. Cuts would be preventable if just less than a hundred voters reconsider their stance, Waters said.
Waters acknowledged that the district needs to strive for better communication with the community. With a levy failure as close as it was, he says the April election will be close, which will prompt the district’s need to improve information.
“We need to do a better job of getting out there and really sharing the information with our community. but we also hope that the community takes us up on the offer to engage with us and have conversations,” he said.
For more information about the replacement EP&O levy proposal for the Tuesday, April 22, special election, visit battlegroundps.org/page/educational-levy.
