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They aren't done counting ballots (we have a mail in paper ballot system so it takes a while to open all the envelopes and scan all the paper ballots and they trickle in from the post office). But there were a lot of Vancouver-area school levies on the ballot for yesterday's election. Here are the results:
Right-click and open the links in incognito windows if you hit the paywall.
Battle Ground, Camas, and Washougal didn't have bonds this election. Historically Battle Ground has struggled to pass levies. Camas always passes theirs. I can't think of the last time a bond failed in Camas.
The Evergreen, Vancouver, and Hockinson bond measures were technology and special programs levies requiring 50% to pass. The Ridgefield levies were capital construction bonds that require 60% supermajority and they failed.
I was kind of surprised by both the Hockinson and Ridgefield results. This is the 2nd time that Hockinson failed to pass a school levy. I'm not sure what is going on in Hockinson as these were small levies that only needed 50% and they couldn't get over that bar. Hockinson built a new HS a few years ago. It is a nice facility so they are way ahead of Ridgefield. But they can't seem to get anything new passed.
Ridgefield easily passed the last one in 2017 after a really intense public campaign. I'm not sure if they got complacent this time around or what. They are projecting student population growth of 42% by 2022 which is 3 years away. That school district is going to be a sea of portable classrooms for the near-term future if they can't turn this around fast. They need to stop issuing building permits if they aren't going to keep up with the schools. But I think that ship has already sailed. They had plans to continue HS expansion and build another elementary which will be on hold if they can't get another levy passed.
This should be of interest to families with school-age kids who are looking to relocate in this region. There is a growing disparity in school quality and facilities as certain areas manage to pass bonds and others do not. At this point I'd be reluctant to buy a house and commit long-term to the schools in Battle Ground or Ridgefield. I think Ridgefield is more likely to turn things around than Battle Ground but the clock is ticking. They get hundreds more students showing up every year and the schools are already overcrowded. So they don't have the luxury of wasting a year or two getting new bonds on the ballot. Evergreen and Vancouver school districts seem to have decent success passing levies. Both school districts are large and sprawling with a lot of natural disparity between the more upscale and downscale areas. The schools in the nice parts of Vancouver and Evergreen are very nice (Felida, Salmon Creek, and East East Vancouver Fisher's Landing etc.). Camas is the most affluent district in the county and has stayed the most ahead of the pack in terms of school constrution and levies. They are still building out new schools from prior bonds and seem to be on sound footing. I don't know much about Washougal Schools. It is the one district where I have never been inside any school.
I don't mean for this to be a long political thread about the merits of school funding. Obviously a majority of voters in some districts did not see the merits. I don't want to argue the point. I'm just posting this information for families who are looking to move to the area and are looking to see which districts are most supportive of education funding. It does make a difference. And it even affects property values.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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47% of my $14,800 annual property tax goes to schools (up from $800 / yr). Hope they are happy about that, as it is a pretty healthy chunk of my budget (11x what I spend on food)
By homeschooling, we didn't cost the school budget a whole lot . So we volunteered 2 days / week in public schools just so they didn't feel cheated. (32 volunteer hrs / week as a family)
If relocating / purchasing... Do check with your friendly assessor office BEFORE you buy.
I have properties directly across the street from each other, & they are in different school districts.
Taxes are 40% less in the 'Better' district. (that is no surprise).
Thanks for the report. Definitely makes me feel better about the decision to purchase in Camas.
Agreed. I think Ridgefield will eventually get there in a decade or so. By 2030 it could be "the next Camas". But that does no good if your kids are in school right now. They are so far behind the curve that they will be digging out of the hole for a decade.
What happened in Ridgefield is that they had a big school construction bond narrowly fail in 2008 right at the start of the recession. It was perhaps poorly timed, or they didn't know the recession was coming. In any event, it would have built a whole new HS just like they did around the same time in Hockinson and Woodland. After the bond failed in Ridefield they just went into retrenchment mode and dealt with a growing population by putting up a sea of portables around all the existing schools. The did expand Southridge Elementary, I'm not sure when. But really weren't keeping up.
Then around 2014 the area just started to absolutely explode as it was one of the only areas in the greater Portland metro that had room for lots of new suburban development. By 2016 there were new subdivisions going up everywhere. And last year there was literally no road you could drive on around Ridgefield without running into construction delays due to subdivision construction. They did pass a bond in 2016 that has resulted in a new middle school and a partial expansion of the HS that actually isn't really adding that many classrooms because they are demolishing half of the old school at the same time. They were really counting on Phase 2 which was this most recent bond to finish out the HS and I think add another elementary. I have no idea what they are going to do now. I think the community did a massive bond campaign in 2016 and it passed easily. I think perhaps they were complacent this time around and just assumed from prior experience that it would pass. And now they are paying the price. They will have to get some sort of new bond in front of the voters ASAP with whatever modifications they can create to make it look like they are thinking up something different. If not they will have 1500 students in a HS built for about 900 with similar levels of overcrowding at all the lower grades. It will be a less than ideal environment for the kids currently in school.
Camas has also been growing but not at the same pace as Ridgefield. However Camas has been able to stay ahead of the curve in terms of school construction because they haven't had any bonds fail. So the new schools have been coming online as needed. There are still a few portables around the various schools but very few of them compared to Ridgefield. It is just a much more stable school environment.
Do the developers ever have to pay for school construction? Here in the Bay Area, most of the time large developers have to foot the bill for new infrastructure like schools/parks/water as part of the entitlement process.
Do the developers ever have to pay for school construction? Here in the Bay Area, most of the time large developers have to foot the bill for new infrastructure like schools/parks/water as part of the entitlement process.
The county imposes some type of impact fees. I'm not sure how big they are and where the money goes. This page shows how fees are distributed to fund roads, parks, schools, etc. But not the amount. I suspect they fall WAY short of covering the true impacts: https://www.clark.wa.gov/community-d...-do-my-fees-go
I don't mean for this to be a long political thread about the merits of school funding. Obviously a majority of voters in some districts did not see the merits.
Those voters who checked "no" likely made a rational economic decision to put the brakes on ever-escalating property taxes, a huge percentage of which are school taxes. "Merits" doesn't pay the bills for those with limited means, on fixed incomes, or retirees. And if these districts keep trying to pass levy after levy, soon all of them will fail at the ballot box.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 182pilot
Do the developers ever have to pay for school construction? Here in the Bay Area, most of the time large developers have to foot the bill for new infrastructure like schools/parks/water as part of the entitlement process.
Developers usually get "Credits" (from the jurisdiction), existing residents / buyers cover the fees.
Impact fees ONLY added at "change of use". most significant impact is from bare land to commercial (residential is not as expensive, but plenty)
Worst situation... ;(Happens a lot)
Buy an existing home on property with a long road frontage (just outside the city limits).
Developer buys the parcel PAST your home.
Developer petitions to have his property annexed. (he gets votes equivalent to the lots he is adding)
You get ONE vote
Developer wins the annex vote.
you get annexed.
Sewer, water, curb, gutter, fire hydrants need to be added on your LONG frontage.
YOU pay for that (can be $x,xxx / ft of frontage)
Developer gets 'credits' for the annex (no cost to him) As he will add x lots + the people like you he forced to get annexed & the city forces you to abandon wells / septic and add their monthly utility services + gets revenue + COSTS from YOU (for the rest of your days)
My last water / sewer bills in Camas were $600 for a 4 plex. (up from $120).
Last edited by StealthRabbit; 02-14-2019 at 10:50 PM..
My Bay Area (EBMUD) water bill for for August and September 2017 (during the drought) was $1597. That was for my single residence on half an acre. Same period this past summer was just under $1000. Top tier (which pretty much everyone gets to within a few days of the start of the billing period) is $6.83 per 100 cubic feet. That's just for water.
Getting back on topic, I looked at the impact fees and they are laughable. If you ask me, the developers are committing highway robbery and leaving all the taxpayers with the bill. If these cities/county need new schools and other infrastructure, it really should be part of the entitlement process. If you look at large developments in CA, they include schools, libraries, sports fields, parks and pools, all as part of the initial development and paid for by the developer. When looking around in Clark county I found it odd that none of the developments seemed to include much in the way of amenities at all, much less ones for public use. For that reason I guess I'm glad I bought outside of the UGB.
Those voters who checked "no" likely made a rational economic decision to put the brakes on ever-escalating property taxes, a huge percentage of which are school taxes. "Merits" doesn't pay the bills for those with limited means, on fixed incomes, or retirees. And if these districts keep trying to pass levy after levy, soon all of them will fail at the ballot box.
Yes well, you are going find a portion of that atitude everywhere.
My experience, however, living in various communities in TX, WA, and OR is that there is often tremendous disparity from community to community in terms of willingness to pay bonds.
Generally speaking, affluent family-oriented communities that are newer and are attracting a lot of young families are going to have a much easier time passing bonds because a higher percentage of voters have kids in the schools. And residents of affluent communities are going to be less affected by property taxes, as they are just a much smaller portion of their overall spending. In Clark County that is going to be Camas, Ridgefield, Felida, Salmon Creek, and the newer parts of Vancouver proper such as Fishers Landing. It is exactly the same in Texas. All the affluent fast-growing suburban areas around all the major cities never have any trouble passing bonds because a majority of the population is invested in the schools. Same thing happens in Oregon. An affluent community with lots of young famlies like say Wilsonville is going to have an easier time passing bonds than say Roseburg with an aging downscale population.
Areas with higher percentages of retired people on fixed incomes and more rural areas tend to have more difficult time passing bonds. It is really tough, for example, on the Oregon Coast where there is a high percentage of retirees from out of state who neither have kids, nor are particularly invested in the local community to the extent that they might be had they lived there their entire lives.
What does that mean for a family with kids who is looking for the most supportive community? There are very real differences across Clark County in the extent to which voters support school funding. You can move to a supportive community and be pretty certain that those attitudes will mostly continue and that schools will be well supported in the near and medium term. Or you can move to a community that has a history of not supporting school bonds and just accept the fact that there is likely nothing you will be able to do to change that. You can get out and knock on doors all you want and do all the PTA fundraisers you want but it still won't likely make up the difference. Your schools are just never going to have the same resources as those in wealthier areas across the county. As long as school funding is based on local property taxes that will continue to be the case.
And, of course, if you don't have kids and school quality is not a factor in your decision-making, then you can follow Stealth's advice and parse the county property tax data to find the corners of the county that have the lowest tax burden. Most likely those will be places out on the fringes of the county well away from all the new and fast-growing areas.
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as it is a pretty healthy chunk of my budget (11x what I spend on food)
. So we volunteered 2 days / week in public schools just so they didn't feel cheated. (32 volunteer hrs / week as a family) 
