Richland wants $314M for 3rd high school and more. What else will it pay for?

Richland School District hopes to gain enough support in the next four months to pass its largest-ever bond measure to address overcrowding in its high schools.

The school board at its Tuesday night meeting agreed to ask voters f or a $314 million bond measure to pay for construction of a new West Richland high school and a number of other high-need projects

The measure was filed Wednesday with the Benton County Auditor’s Office and will appear on the Nov. 5 presidential election ballot. It must get a super majority — at least 60% — approval from voters to pass.

If passed, it would increase the property tax rate within the Richland School District by about $1 per $1,000 of assessed value. Bonds would mature and be repaid within 20 years.

The measure passed unanimously, 4-0, with board President Rick Jansons, Vice President Jill Oldson, and board members Bonnie Mitchell and Katrina Waters in support. Board member Chelsie Beck was not in attendance.

Now it’s crunch time for supporters of new school construction. Amassing enough support in a small amount of time will be “a heavy lift,” Jansons said, but he believes there is a real appetite for the proposed projects.

“If it doesn’t pass, we’re going to need to re-evaluate and ask why,” he said.

“What’s good about November is we’re going to get a wider cross section of voters because you get more people in the November election. And we do have a chance to come back, in February or April, with a different slate of projects. If the voters say this isn’t the right mix right now, it gives us a chance to regroup and come back out,” Jansons added.

Decade in the making

For the better part of the last decade, staff and parents have stressed the importance of building a third high school in West Richland to serve one of the fastest growing parts of Washington state.

Then came the COVID pandemic, which substantially slowed the district’s rate of enrollment growth. Richland schools continue to grow, just not at the rate seen prior to COVID.

Richland administrators were poised in recent months to pursue a bond package that left out a third high school , favoring instead smaller strategies to address high school overcrowding. But the school board ultimately chose to pursue the project, citing the support it received at a number of stakeholder meetings .

The Richland district served about 13,460 full-time students during the 2023-24 school year . Its high school population makes up more than 4,200 students attending grades 9th-12th.

The school district has a squeaky clean record of passing school measures.

Over the last two decades, Richland has passed every bond and operations levy it’s presented to voters. Its last bond — passed in 2017 by a margin of 2 percentage points — paid for three new elementary schools and renovations at Richland and Hanford high schools.

In Washington state, bonds are for building schools and facilities while levies pay for learning and education programs.

Unlike levies, which require a simple majority of voters to pass, bond measures require a 60% “super majority” of voters in the district for approval. Local school districts share the burden of paying for the construction of new schools with the state, which provides matching dollars.

Support for school bond measures in Washington has declined in recent years, especially in the wake of temporary classroom closures caused by the COVID pandemic.

In 2023, for example, more than a dozen school districts across Washington tried passing construction measures and only two met the 60% support threshold for approval — Pasco and South Whidbey.

The increased scrutiny of bond measures has left some campaigns to think outside the box. In Pasco’s case, bond supporters worked to “microtarget” supportive precincts and voters while avoiding strategies that prompted the attention of broader audiences.

What’s in Richland’s $314M bond measure?

Richland’s third comprehensive high school will likely cost more than $255 million. When the 260,000-square-foot West Richland building opens, it will serve more than 1,600 students.

The bond measure would also fund other high-priority projects, including:

• A new 40,000-square-foot innovative high school to serve 300-400 students, including attendees of Rivers Edge High School and Pacific Crest Online Academy

• Land purchases
• Safety and security projects already funded by the 2023 capital facilities levy. The district plans to cancel its 31-cent capital levy collections if the bond passes, lowering the tax burden
• A new 21,000-square-foot transportation cooperative facility
• Hanford High School stadium upgrades and a new theater scene shop
• New tennis courts at Richland and Hanford high schools, running track replacements at middle schools, roof maintenance repairs, and parking lot and building repairs at Chief Joe Middle School
• A new multi-purpose room at Richland High School.

If passed, the state of Washington would contribute more than $43 million through the School Construction Assistance Program to total a pool of about $357 million in expendable capital.