North Kitsap School District seeking six-year facilities, technology capital levy

North Kitsap School District will ask voters during the November special election to pass a six-year capital levy to raise roughly $32 million, aimed at providing funding in two major areas from 2025-30: facilities and technology.

North Kitsap school board members Mike Desmond (president), Breanna Martinez (vice president), Beverly Godfrey, Stacy Mills and Edward Wright unanimously voted to approve the levy measure at Thursday's regular meeting at the district administration building in Poulsbo. The levy requires 50% plus one vote in order to pass during the election.

During the levy planning process, the district's facilities advisory committee met eight times from April through July, held three community forums and toured four schools (Pearson, Suquamish and Wolfle elementary schools and Kingston Middle School) in an effort to identify priorities.

According to the levy proposal, funding would be used to "construct, modernize and remodel school facilities district-wide to improve health, safety and security, consistent with priority projects identified by the district's Facilities Advisory Committee." Projects would include improving site accessibility and making Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements; making parking/transportation/bus pick-up and drop-off improvements; making building security improvements, including secure entry vestibules, cameras and fencing; renovating classroom spaces to reduce portable usage; constructing/renovating playground, field and physical education facilities and buildings; and upgrading mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and exterior roofs/walls/systems to extend the life of existing buildings.

Funding would also assigned for the purpose of "upgrading, acquiring, installing, modernizing and improving the district's technology systems, facilities, projects, equipment and infrastructure."

Levy allocation estimates by school are $1,904,000 for Wolfle Elementary, $6,145,500 for Pearson Elementary, $1,295,000 for Gordon Elementary, $606,000 for Poulsbo Elementary, $5,001,000 for Suquamish Elementary, $2,756,500 for Vinland Elementary, $2,843,500 for Kingston Middle School, $1,507,500 for Poulsbo Middle School, $1,102,500 for Kingston High School, and $1,778,500 for North Kitsap High School.

NKSD is currently collecting funds on a pair of four-year levies that voters approved in 2022: a $73 million operations levy and a $35.3 million capital levy. Those levies run through 2026. The district hoped to address a major list of capital project needs through a 20-year, $242 million bond it put on the ballot in February, but voters rejected the measure in overwhelming fashion.

Without bond funding in place, the district is hoping to bridge the gap and address its most critical needs with the six-year capital levy. The measure, if approved by voters, would seek to collect a majority of funding in the first two years ($10 million in 2025 and $11.5 million in 2026). The collection amounts would drop to $2.5 million in 2027, $2,575,000 in 2028, $2,652,250 in 2029 and $2,732,000 in 2030.

The estimated cost for property owners across the life of the six-year levy would be $0.74 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2025, $0.82 in 2026, and $0.17 in 2027-30.

With the 2022 capital levy expiring at the end of 2026, and this six-year levy significantly reducing collection amounts after 2026, it sets NKSD up for the possibility of revisiting another bond proposal/capital levy proposal in two years.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: North Kitsap School District seeks facilities, technology capital levy