SPOKANE, Wash. — Early next year, Spokane Public Schools will ask voters for a $200 million bond. Though first they want to know how voters would like to spend the money.
Wednesday the SPS board met to discuss three different spending scenarios, narrowing them down to two to present to constituents next month.
"This is part of a process that actually initiated two years ago," said Shawn Jordan, chief operations officer for the district.
Jordan says after workshops over the last couple years, where stakeholders from elementary to high school got to weigh in on priority projects, the district came up with those three different "packages."
Two of those options will be presented to voters in September to give their thoughts, concerns, and support online.
"We wanna bring any feedback to our board of directors," Jordan said.
The three options all have similarities because the district already identified major priorities they want to ask voters to pay for, including replacing the two oldest elementary schools.
"You see Adams and Madison throughout all three scenarios because of the needs of those facilities," Jordan said.
Both schools are more than 50 years old, he explained, and are outdated. Another commonality is modernizing the district's oldest middle school, Garry, and making improvements to Chase Middle School.
All scenarios also include funding "bond basics" like technology upgrades and security improvements; the district was able to set aside $52 million from a $500 million bond measure in 2018 to pay for those projects.
Voters will get to weigh in on whether to fund improvements to other schools or to delay construction in favor of funding design.
For instance, Scenario 1 prioritizes the first phase of upgrading The Community School and upgrading the oldest sections of North Central High, while only funding design for upgrades to Balboa.
Scenario 3, meanwhile, would pay for replacing part of Balboa including design and a new gym, while delaying upgrades to The Community School.
Jordan says the district requests a bond measure every six years for necessary improvements, but this time they're asking for a lower amount because of inflation and other tax burdens.
"The reality for us is we can't do everything we need to do," Jordan said. "[The goal is ] to have a bond initiative that's least impactful to our tax payers, so that's where the process of prioritizing the priorities is in our work session."
Following Wednesday's meeting and the decision over which two options to offer for feedback, Jordan says voters will be able to share their thoughts online, much like the district has allowed over the last several bond measures. The board is expected to finalize which option to put on the ballot by November.
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