Superintendent Woods presents levy information to Yelm City Council ahead of Nov. 3 election

Less than a month ahead of Thurston County’s general election, which is set for Tuesday, Nov. 3, Chris Woods, Superintendent of Yelm Community Schools (YCS) attended a Yelm City Council study session in hope of spreading further information about the upcoming educational programs and operations (EP&O) levy.

The measure is set at $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed home value. Yelm High School has seen four consecutive levies fail, up to this point.
During his presentation to city council, Woods highlighted the district’s strategic plan — which was created a little over a year ago with the help of 30 people, including district staff, former district staff, members of the community and parents.

He said the group took a deep dive into different data accumulated throughout the school district, including the “good, the bad and the ugly,” in order to decide which areas YCS wanted to commit to moving forward.

“We narrowed it down to three areas. Learning, belonging and community,” Woods said. “Under those three areas we have 11 goals. Why this is so important is because levy dollars support our strategic plan. There isn’t part of our plan that levy dollars wouldn’t touch if we had those in our district at this time.”

If the levy passes in November, YCS will collect a total of $11,194,449 from local taxpayers in 2027. In 2028, the district would collect a total of $12,278,072, as a result of tax collection from the passed levy. These funds would pay for expenses of essential education programs in Yelm, extracurricular activities and operations throughout the district.

“As you may know, in our district, programs are a result of the people that we have,” Woods said. “We don’t have programs without people. All of the programs, in some way or another, are supported because of the staffing we have. A large part of our budget, 85%, as a matter of fact, are people. 15% are on materials, supplies and operating costs. Everything we do falls under these three areas.”

According to Woods, many residents statewide don’t like levies, and would rather see a system where schools are fully funded by the state and the need to turn to local voters to support a tax is eliminated.

“That’s not our current reality, and so we have to go to voters and ask for levy dollars,” Woods said. “Truthfully, levy dollars bridge that gap between where we’re funded from the state and where we need to be funded. That’s just the simple rationale for why we have levies.”

Additionally, Woods presented to Yelm City Council that a total of 163 positions have been cut over the past two years as a result of the district’s ongoing financial struggles.

What does that look like for YCS?
The superintendent said, as a result of the 163 cuts, that the district is seeing less small group instruction, less behavior support, fewer learning opportunities, and cuts to fifth grade band, librarians, digital curriculum, several electives — including middle school choir, yearbook and computer science. Additionally, Woods pointed out that selection of courses at Yelm High School are reduced.

Why is the district running the levy at $1.50? According to Woods, there are three reasons why. “Number one, $1.50 represents the fact that our board, and us as a district, are trying to be sensitive to the tax fatigue that people are feeling in our state,” Woods said. “We’ve heard, over the last four times we’ve tried to run this levy, that people are tired of paying taxes. I don’t think people disagree with that. As we talked about the levy rate, our board wanted to be sensitive to that tax fatigue our voters are feeling. Second reason, $1.50 is really the floor. It’s really the bottom that we can go and maintain our staffing and programs that we have now and not have to cut further.”

The third reason, Woods said, is at the rate of $1.50, YCS qualifies for levy equalization funds from Washington state — which could provide an additional $2 million to the district.

“So, $1.50 and above, if we pass, the state will kick in additional money,” Woods said. “Over the last couple of legislative sessions, they’ve cut levy equalization dollars. It is possible that our legislature could cut it completely. Currently, we are a district that qualifies for that. The reason being is because we’re considered a ‘property-poor district.’”

A property-poor district, according to Woods, means when YCS asks local voters for a levy, they’re being largely supported by residents in the community — rather than a balanced combination of “big box stores” and residents sharing the tax bill. He pointed to North Thurston School District as an example of a local school district being supported through levy collection by both residents and retail businesses.

“Here, it is mainly on the shoulders of our residents, so therefore, we qualify for levy equalization,” Woods said. “It used to be a lot more. Now, it is quite a bit less. But still, $2 million is significant, especially in our situation.”

The superintendent also highlighted some of the different tax collection rates by other school districts in the region.

Yelm taxpayers currently pay $1.07 per $1,000 of assessed value on a bond measure that voters passed in 2019. If the levy passes, local taxpayers would pay a combined total of $2.57 per $1,000 of assessed value between the bond and the levy.

Only two neighboring districts, Centralia School District and Rochester School District, would pay a combined rate that’s less than YCS. The two schools currently have a combined tax rate of $2.41 per $1,000 of assessed value.

North Thurston School District taxpayers currently pay a combined tax rate of $4.37 per $1,000 of assessed value, while Rainier School District taxpayers have a combined rate of $4.26. Tumwater School District taxpayers pay a combined rate of $4.07, and Bethel School District residents pay a combined rate of $3.72.

More districts, including Franklin Pierce School District, Olympia School District, University Place School District, Clover Park School District, Eatonville School District and Tenino School District also have higher collection rates than YCS would, according to Woods.

The superintendent also highlighted the district’s current position in binding conditions — which has led to quarterly meetings between YCS, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and Educational Service District (ESD) 113.

“We’re in binding conditions and we have quarterly meetings with OSPI and ESD 113 to go over our financials. In addition to that, this last school year, for about eight months we didn’t have a director of finance,” Woods said. “We worked directly with ESD and OSPI. So they were intimately involved in our day-to-day operations, so they had firsthand knowledge of our budget.”

He noted that if the levy fails, YCS would leave the status of binding conditions and officially enter financial oversight — where OSPI would assemble a financial oversight committee (FOC) to take an even closer look at the district’s financial situation.

Then, the district would be tasked with putting together a two-year budget that sustains.

“With us having to cut an additional $9 million and 80-to-90 positions, I can tell you, today, that would be really hard for us to do,” Woods said. “It would be really hard for us to meet the basic education requirements of our state at that point with having to make those significant cuts. More than likely, we would go from financial oversight into dissolution.”

At that point, Woods said the state of Washington would determine what happens to YCS. Due to the size of the school district, the superintendent said there’s a chance that if YCS dissolved, its schools could be absorbed by surrounding districts based on their locations — meaning that YCS could be split into multiple surrounding districts.