Pasco Schools Ready to Re-Run Levy That Failed by a Razor-Thin Margin

Pasco Schools serve around 18,300 students K-12, and now they are eyeing re-running the maintenance and operations levy that failed.

  Levy Fails for The First Time in Pasco in 26 Years

The four-year $153 million levy covered a wide variety of operations costs, from maintenance to athletics, some educators, tech and more.

According to the Franklin County Elections Department, it failed by 59 votes, the margins were 4,483, against, and 4,424 in favor. The percentage of failure was basically a half-percentage point. This graph from the Franklin County Elections Center shows how close it was.

Voter turnout was not helpful, 44,800 of the county's 48,801 registered voters are in the District, of those, only 10,900 voted.

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Officials held an emergency meeting Thursday night to discuss options, which could include cutbacks and modifications to the budget.  If an acceptable or workable option is not found, PSD is ready to re-run the levy in April.  However, if it fails again, they have to wait until 2027 to try again.

  Levy Failures Can Cause Loss of State Funding

Some state education funds are 'lost' or not provided to Districts if a levy fails.  When a District passes a levy, some 'matching' or supplemental funding comes from the state. The levy makes up about 10 percent of the Districts funding to operate their 30 schools K-12.

The last time a levy failed in Pasco was in 2000, back then different vote thresholds were required, they had to have 60 percent approval, like bonds to now. However, voters, two months later in April, changed their minds and approved the revised package.

Since 2020, Kennewick has had to re-run two levies to get them passed, as has the Finley School District (Riverview).