North Beach Upwellings

With ballots in mailboxes or about to arrive, we wanted to send a quick update to our friends and neighbors. Details about the levy and bond measures are available on our website and in a previous issue of Upwellings.

Here's a quick summary:

Proposition #1, the Safety 4 Students Construction Bond Measure, creates vital improvements and expansions at each school to enhance learning and safety;

Proposition #2, the renewal Educational Programs and Operations levy, provides 14 percent of the total district budget. It pays for people and things the state considers “enrichment” but that our community generally expects schools to provide.

This issue of Upwellings is going to dive into some details that have come up in conversations in the community. School finance in Washington state is incredibly complicated and it's often easy to assume or arrive at incorrect conclusions.

The EP&O levy is a recurring levy, one that our taxpayers have supported over the past decade, and, overall, are pretty familiar with. So, instead, we're going to focus on the bond measure, which is new to many of our voters.

First, let's dive into how we developed this measure. Then we'll talk about some misperceptions about funding. We bet you'll be surprised!

Fact: The NBSD Bond measure was developed to address years of deferred maintenance, structural and practical needs in our schools, and to create seismically safe and flexible instructional space that has additional potential uses, including as a tsunami refuge.

When Superintendent Kelly joined North Beach School District in 2018, the school board directed that he not only address student achievement and employee relations - but address the facility needs of the district, too.

Among the most concerning issues -- a significant inequity between the physical buildings that house Pacific Beach Elementary and Ocean Shores Elementary.

When school districts begin the process of determining the condition of their schools and looking for funding to maintain and improve them, there is a common process to make sure the most urgent and important needs are addressed, and that tax payers get their full money's worth. This process has been underway in North Beach School District for the past two-plus years.

1. The first step in the process was to create a Long Range Facilities Committee comprised of district and community experts who were interested in ensuring that our schools -- our most significant community investment -- were safe, well cared for, and offered all of the essentials to support a high quality education for each of our nearly 800 scholars.

2. The second step was to call in the experts – the Construction Services Group (CSG), which performs similar services for districts across our state. Their staff evaluates all aspects of the school buildings from the roof to the wiring, the school’s air quality to the pipes that carry the water. CSG conducted a comprehensive survey of the North Beach School District buildings in 2019.

CSG gave us a valuable overview to start our work. One thing we already knew: More instructional space is needed, because enrollment across the district has grown substantially in the past two decades.

If passed, this bond measure will first and foremost provide extra instructional space that can be flexed for multiple educational uses, and will provide needed space for community activities.

One of the possible uses for part of this additional space, tsunami refuges, has earned a lot of attention.

Our examination of our buildings' conditions happened to come at a time that the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was tasked with evaluating the state’s schools for earthquake resilience, and in schools on the coast, for tsunami resilience.

This past summer, the DNR evaluated our buildings for earthquake and tsunami safety. All three schools are vulnerable to a tsunami overtopping their site before students and staff could fully evacuate.

Pacific Beach Elementary, nearly half a century old and built only a couple of blocks from the ocean beach, rated the most concern. DNR opened up areas of the school's walls to determine how well the school would hold up in an earthquake. The agency's staff also evaluated what’s under PBE – and determined that the soil would liquefy in an earthquake.

This information, combined with the survey conducted by CSG, was placed before the Facilities Committee. Through the course of multiple discussions, the committee came to the conclusion that it was essential the district pursue completing the work detailed in our bond measure.

We hope that we never see a tsunami of the magnitude that a Cascadia fault rupture, for example, would cause. But having such a space ready could be vital if we do see a major tsunami.

By the way, the space won't be accessible only on school days. The district has been discussing ways to make sure neighbors can access it in the event of an off-hours disaster.

Fact: It would cost more to remodel the current Pacific Beach Elementary to bring it up to standard, than to rebuild it on a new site -- and the building would still be vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunami.

Initially, Pacific Beach Elementary was evaluated for renovations and retrofitting for earthquake/tsunami risk. However, CSG's survey and the work done by the DNR revealed major systems at the end of their useful life in a structure unlikely to withstand an earthquake caused by the Cascadia fault.

Like many older schools, the current Pacific Beach Elementary cannot be renovated at an acceptable cost. It's more cost-effective to start fresh. After reviewing this information and doing research into moving the building, the facilities committee suggested instead pursuing an alternate site on which to build a new structure.

Fact: School districts collect a total amount. If your home valuation increases due to increased property values in the area, your local school tax rate will decrease -- and the total amount you pay will remain about the same.

As we’ve rolled out the bond measure, we’ve seen some surprising misperceptions floated on social media – and by far, most of them have to do with school finances. We’ve copied the following comment from a community Facebook page. On the face of it, the writer’s assumptions seem logical, right?

“There has been a couple news articles about the signicant increased in revenue Ocean Shores has seen over the past couple of years due to the tremendous amount of new construction - we have all seen new homes going up all around us and of course they are all now paying into these taxes, and we're all paying a much higher rate than previous due to increased assessed values - so clearly our schools are receiving far more money this year than last year and the previous. Since a big portion of our community is older people - I wouldn't think we see a big influx of school kids here with the growth. New taxes do NOT seem justified!”

The assumptions might seem logical, but they’re wrong. Here’s why. Unlike other taxing agencies, school districts' collections are maintained at a set total amount.

Let’s start with the levy. The amount on this year’s ballot, $1,986,705, is the maximum the district can collect for each of the two years, 2023 and 2024. (Homeowners are likely to pay less, however, due to current state rules about maximum collections per student).

School districts calculate an expected tax rate, in part so that taxpayers know what they will pay per thousand dollars valuation of their home or property if the measure passes.

This is important, so we're going to repeat it: $1,986,705 is the maximum the district can collect for our local levy, even if home valuations increase. If home valuations increase, the tax rate will go down. The TOTAL tax collected will stay the same. Unlike other taxing agencies, we don't collect more as those rates rise.

(NOTE: School districts also get state funding. Keep in mind that the amount of state funding that North Beach School District gets does NOT directly correspond to the portion of your taxes you pay to the state's school fund. What you pay for the state schools tax goes into a big pot of funding that the state then allocates to school districts across the state. State funding does not come back to the district dollar for dollar of what you pay into this tax. To keep this discussion a little simpler, we want to focus only on local tax collections for schools.)

Now, let’s move on to the bond measure. The rule is the same.

$110 million, if approved by voters, is the maximum the district will collect on this measure.

By running this measure now, the district can take advantage of low interest rates, and taxpayers will get the most possible product for their money.

Similar to a home mortgage, the school district will borrow the money by selling bonds to investors. The investors will be paid back over 25 years through tax collections from our community.

So, let’s look at some different scenarios:

• What happens when home valuations increase? The tax rate is reduced. But the total amount you pay remains about the same, assuming you haven't made major improvements to your home.
• What if home valuations decrease? The tax rate increases but the total amount you pay remains about the same, assuming your home's condition remains the same.
• What could make your total amount increase? If you expand or make major improvements on your home, your home's value will increase. The tax assessor will likely notice and increase your valuation accordingly. Your share of the total collections increases.
• What might decrease your total share of the collections? As additional homes are built in the district, they take on more of the total tax obligation. Yes, owners of the property paid a portion of the collections prior to building. But, when they build, the value of the property increases. They pay more. As those owners take a larger portion of the collections, other owners’ share of the collections decrease -- because the district does not get any more money than the $110 million.
• Your collections may also decrease if your age/disability and income level qualifies you for a tax deferment or exemption.

The district is applying for grants that may also lower the total bond collections. Read more about this in the next section.

Disclaimer: This a high-level look at school district tax rates and property tax. Individual situations vary widely. Read more about school funding here. You can also read more about how property tax is calculated in Washington, here.

The district is actively pursuing grants to help pay for its facilities needs in order to reduce the burden on local taxpayers. The receipt of grants and other non-local dollars will potentially allow the district to reduce the amount of its total bond sales.

Here are a few sources of potential funding that are NOT generated by local taxes, and their current status as of January 22, 2022. Assuming the FEMA grant is awarded and the governor’s $6 million is part of the final budget approved by the state legislature, Superintendent Kelly will recommend that the board reduce the total bond sale by $9 million.

• NBSD has applied for $5 million through OSPI’s “Small Rural Modernization Grant,” which, if granted, would fully cover the middle school/high school HVAC system**.
• The district has applied for a planning grant for FEMA dollars that would allow us to apply for and potentially access $3 million dollars from FEMA. The planning grant has been approved.
• Governor Jay Inslee included $6 million in his proposed budget specifically to help rebuild the new Pacific Beach Elementary. It is contingent on the district passing its bond measure.
• The Seabrook Community Foundation has committed $1 million dollars to help with the PB school construction. This is dependent on the passage of the bond measure.

Fact: The district is governed by local citizens who oversee the superintendent's work.

The North Beach Board of Directors, elected by their peers, are the final decision-makers at the end of the day on all things fiscal, including the bond measure. "We have an excellent board of directors who are integrity based and working to do the very best they can for each of our kids," Superintendent Kelly says, " AND they are all homeowners, paying taxes in the district...just like everyone else. We're in this together!"

Read more about the school board on our web site.

NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY

The North Beach School District does not discriminate in any programs or activities on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The following employee(s) has been designated to handle questions and complaints of alleged discrimination: Civil Rights, Title IX, and Section 504 Coordinator: Andrew E. Kelly, akelly@northbeachschools.org, 336 St. Rt. 115, Ocean Shores, WA 98569, 360-289-2447.

Email: ptimpson@northbeachschools.org
Website: www.northbeachschools.org
Location: P.O. Box 159/336 State Route 115, Ocean Shores, WA 98569
Phone: 360-289-2447
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NorthBeachSchoolDistrict