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NEWPORT — All three school districts in Pend Oreille County are placing a levy on the ballot in February.
These are Educational Programs and Operations levies. Formerly known as Maintenance and Operations levies, EPO levies are renewed by Washington school districts after a period of up to four years and fund programs, staff and other areas that are underfunded or not funded at all by the state. The Newport, Cusick and Selkirk School Districts have renewed EPO levies every three years since 2015.
“We do so to split the ballot costs as school levies are expensive to run and are generally the only ballot items in February,” Selkirk Superintendent Nancy Lotze wrote in an email. “Each district’s levy amount requested depends on whether there are other funds to complement them.”
Newport, Cusick and Selkirk are proposing decreases to the estimated rates of their EPO levies this year. However, all three are also proposing increases to the total amounts for collection.
Selkirk is renewing its EPO levy at a rate of $1.58 per $1,000 in assessed property value, collecting $2.48 million over the next three years, if passed by voters. Currently, Selkirk’s EPO levy has a rate of $2.25 per $1,000 and will collect $2.2 million by the end of this year.
“Some districts can access federal impact dollars or state-matching funds for levies,” Lotze wrote. “Selkirk does not get either.”
Meanwhile, Cusick is renewing its EPO levy to collect $1.65 million at a rate per $1,000 of $1.02 in 2027, $1.01 in 2028 and $1 in 2029. For the last three years, Cusick has been collecting $1.49 million at rates of about $1.46 per $1,000.
Renewed in 2023, Newport’s EPO levy is collecting $6.7 million at a rate of $1.50 per $1,000. As previously reported in The Miner, Newport has proposed decreasing the rate to $1.45 per $1,000 and increasing the total amount for collection to $8.8 million over the next three years.
“The district is very conscious about keeping taxes as low as possible while providing quality educational programs and activities for our students,” Cusick Superintendent Don Hawpe wrote in an email.
The rates are based on factors such as new construction and assessed property valuation within each district, the latter of which has “gone up considerably” in the last few years, county assessor James McCroskey said. As of this year, Newport’s assessed property valuation is $1.54 billion, Cusick’s $483.61 million and Selkirk’s $441.16 million — 69%, 53% and 60% more than in 2019.
“As values go up, levy rates a lot of times will drop,” McCroskey said.
Selkirk’s EPO levy funds all extracurricular programs, a third of student support and staffing, a third of food service and a quarter of maintenance, custodial, utilities and safety. Besides extracurricular activities, counseling, food service, maintenance, custodial, safety and security, Cusick’s EPO levy funds curriculum, transportation, technology and programs such as career and technical education, driver’s education and accelerated learning. According to the district website, Newport’s EPO levy improves operations, retains programs and services and supports student activities, a school resource officer, a school nurse and alternative learning.
“A loss of levy funding would require a significant reduction in programs, services and staffing,” Hawpe wrote.
Selkirk has about 50 employees and, after budgeting for 235 full-time equivalent students, is at an average of 236.25. Cusick has 29 certificated and 40 classified staff, with 381.79 FTEs after budgeting for 344. Like Selkirk and Cusick, Newport is budgeted for 1,093 FTEs and is at 1,111.28 as of December last year.
All three have remained above-budget in enrollment since fall.
