The Centralia City Council passed a resolution Tuesday to support the Centralia School District as it looks to pass its replacement educational programs and operations levy proposition in the Feb. 10 special election.
Councilors voted 6-1 in favor of backing the three-year levy, with new councilor Tucker Voetberg the lone opposing vote.
Dr. Lisa Grant, superintendent of the Centralia School District, told the council that the school board has worked to find the right balance between serving its students and being fiscal stewards and cognizant of the tax demands of the community and taxpayers.
“We know that strong schools help support a strong community, and vice versa,” she said. “Without a lot of big business, it puts more burden on the individual taxpayer. We are hopeful that with growth of the economy and business here, that will help that. We’ve tried to find the right balance of moving our district forward, improving our results academically exponentially, and then balancing that with the needs in our community.”
Grant said the levy is for three years as the length of time helps the school district maintain consistency with its programming for students. It also allows the district to keep a similar tax rate rather than coming back each year with a higher rate, Grant said.
The Centralia School District’s proposed three-year levy includes a total of $7,150,000 in 2026 for collection in 2027, $7,640,000 in 2027 for collection in 2028, and $8,157,000 in 2028 for collection in 2029. If approved, the tax rate would be set at $1.70 per $1,000 of assessed valuation in 2026 and raise to $1.75 per $1,000 in 2027 and $1.80 per $1,000 in 2028.
Centralia’s levy passed with 56.17% of voters approving the measure in the Feb. 13, 2024, special election. The ballot measure marked the school district’s third attempt to pass a replacement levy since February 2023.
Former Centralia councilors Sarah Althauser, who serves as the executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Lewis County, and Max Vogt provided their support for the levy through public comment, along with Port of Centralia Commissioner Peter Lahmann.
Councilor Kelly Smith Johnston acknowledged what she called “tax fatigue” in the community.
“It’s difficult right now to balance your household budget. Costs are rising everywhere. Last year, we saw significant tax increases to our property tax in the neighborhood of 38% to 42% for most people,” she said. “One of those was the school levy, but I’ll remind everyone that we didn’t have a levy for a year, and so that was putting it back. But we’ve done tremendous work in this community to increase our overall valuation.”
Smith Johnston added that incoming developments will help individual tax rates for each property go down. She assured that there won’t be another dramatic increase in tax rates and noted the significance of supporting students and their education.
“We’ve had some failed levies. I’ve been in the schools regularly talking with kids and representing the city, and I talked with students the day after a levy failure,” Smith Johnston said. “I was in the classroom, and they looked at me and said, ‘Why doesn’t our community support us?’ It hurt to have to face them and respond to that. This is a valuable use of taxpayer dollars. There’s an economic benefit to the city. When you have healthy schools, you have a healthier business community. But it’s also a message to our kids that they’re important, that they’re valued, and that this community supports them with their pocketbook.”
Voetberg offered a different point of view and leaned on the tax fatigue being felt in the community with inflation and increased taxes.
“I love our Centralia school systems, and I agree that healthy schools do create healthy communities. It’s easy to say that you support the schools and you want the schools to do well, but it’s another thing to actually pull out your pocketbook and pay for that,” he said. “I know a lot of people feel like the taxes are burdensome in the community, and they would like relief.”
Ballots for the Feb. 10 special election will be mailed to voters on Jan. 21. The Boistfort and Onalaska school districts also have school levy propositions on the ballot for the special election.
For more information on the school district levy propositions in Lewis County, visit https://tinyurl.com/ms7vdkcr.
