February ballot includes levy ask

Published 10:30 am Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Vashon’s school board has unanimously approved a four-year Educational Programs & Operations Levy request for the district’s general fund that will appear on the Feb. 10 ballot. Voters should receive their ballots in the mail by late next week.

The levy is not a new tax, but rather a renewal of the district’s longtime four-year operations levy, which was last approved by 70% of voters in February of 2022. That levy will expire in 2026.

Property taxes authorized by the proposed levy — which authorizes higher tax collections than the expiring levy did — will be collected from 2027 through 2030. Like the expiring levy, this revenue will consitute approximately 17% of the district’s operating budget, bridging gaps in state funding to meet the costs of the district’s staffing, services, programming and operations.

According to the wording of the measure passed unanimously by the board at a Nov. 13, 2025 meeting, the renewed levy would allow the district to collect up to $7 million in 2027; $7.5 million in 2028; $7.9 million in 2029 and $8.4 million in 2030.

However, it is almost certain that the actual collected revenues of the new levy will be significantly lower than that.

State law limits how much operations-levy money local school districts can collect each year, using a formula based on enrollment numbers and inflation. In 2025, for instance, those limits allowed Vashon schools to collect just $4.7 million, according to the King County Assessor’s Office — much less than the $6.4 million the expiring levy authorized.

The Legislature loosened those limits a year ago; Interim Superintendent Jo Moccia said Vashon schools will collect about $5.3 million in 2026. But, again, that’s still much less than the $6.8 million voters in 2022 authorized for this year.

Similar gaps between actual and authorized collections are likely should the proposed levy pass.

Moccia said the district has been advised by attorneys at Foster Garvey — the Seattle law firm that prepared the levy resolution for February’s ballot — that based on the district’s current and projected enrollment of 1,333 or fewer students, actual collections are estimated to be $5.4 million in 2027; $5.7 million in 2028 and approximately $6 million in 2029 and 2030.

That’s about 75 or 80 percent of the amounts voters are being asked to authorize.

According to Moccia, it is typical for ballot measures and/or levies — especially for school districts — to ask for more money than can be collected, pointing to fluctuations in the school’s enrollment as well as the economy, assessed property values and potential changes in state law.

What won’t change, she said, is the need for the significant additional funding, beyond what the state provides, to keep the district afloat.

The proposed levy funds, she said, are “essential to providing the education that the district’s students are entitled to and deserve.”

Without the levy’s passage, cascading financial shortfalls would hit almost every aspect of public education on Vashon, Moccia said.

“As the State of Washington does not fully fund public education, the levy bridges the gap in paying for many expenses — including but not limited to principals, classroom teachers and other staff supporting students in the classroom, librarians, counselors, office support, custodians, insurance costs, utilities, safety, family engagement, facilities, grounds and maintenance, and enrichment activities including athletics,” she said.

There has been no visible opposition to the levy and no one has submitted a statement opposing it to King County Elections for inclusion in the voter’s pamphlet.

Lower-income senior and disabled homeowners who qualify for King County’s partial property-tax exemption don’t pay taxes for local school levies, including this one.

The proposed operations levy is just one of three levies collected by the school district. The second levy is collected to pay off voter-approved bonds sold to finance construction of major projects like the new high school and stadium improvements. The third, a four-year levy approved by voters in 2024, funds technology and smaller capital projects.