Informational meeting on Wahluke capital levy Jan. 28

MATTAWA — Wahluke School District officials will be available to answer questions on the district’s capital levy request at an 11:30 a.m. presentation on Jan. 28 at the Sagebrush Senior Center, 23 Desert Aire Drive SW, Desert Aire. The levy’s purpose is to pay off debt and upgrade safety infrastructure in school buildings. 

The levy proposal will be on the ballot Feb. 11. If approved, the levy would generate $2.58 million over three years. Ballots were mailed to registered voters Wednesday.   

If the levy is approved, property owners would pay an estimated 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. The owner of property valued at $250,000 would pay $187.50 per year in taxes, while a person whose property is valued at $300,000 would pay $225 per year over the three years. 

The proposal requires a bare majority, 50% plus one vote, to pass. District students and staff will be going throughout neighborhoods in Desert Aire on Jan. 30 to remind residents to vote. 

The money would be used to pay for upgrades to the district’s fire alarm and security alarm systems and to pay off a loan taken out to replace the heating-cooling system at Mattawa Elementary. Wahluke superintendent Andy Harlow cited the loan as an example of what he called “the tyranny of the urgent.” 

The heating-cooling system was replaced in 2024 after a long period of deferred maintenance, Harlow said. District officials had been discussing replacing the system for about a decade, he said, and eventually, it couldn’t be put off any longer.  

“It was almost 10 years past due,” he said. “We spent something like $20,000 in the springtime just to get through (to the end of the school year). We had these portable (air conditioning) units in classrooms and tubes going all over. We (said), ‘We have to pull the trigger.’”  

Paying off the heating-cooling system will cost about $2.2 million, with the rest going to the fire and security alarm upgrades.   

Harlow said the fire and security alarms have been upgraded but still need some work. The HVAC and alarms are examples of some of the consequences of deferred maintenance and some of the choices that had to be made with the district’s limited resources, Harlow said.  

Like all other school districts nationwide, Wahluke received additional federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic and used some of it to address maintenance projects that had been deferred until they couldn’t be any longer. One of those was the Mattawa Elementary roof. 

“We got to the point three years ago that it rained and the computer lab was (damaged). We actually lost computers because of the water damage,” he said. 

District officials used some of the federal money to replace the roof and planned to use some to replace the building’s HVAC system. But other maintenance needs were equally crucial, including upgrades to the district’s security systems. 

“We were having problems with safety, security, break-ins, graffiti, you name it,” Harlow said. “So we invested $600,000 in our security systems, which hadn’t been updated in years. We actually had three different camera systems.”  

Since schools were closed, district officials spent some of the federal money to ensure children had the technology they needed for distance learning. That meant the Mattawa Elementary HVAC system had to be deferred again, Harlow said.  

Funds from the capital levy would be used to replace the electrical systems for the fire and security alarms in four of the district’s schools. 

“Two different systems, but they both have to be replaced. In many cases they’re the original wiring back to 1986,” Harlow said. 

District officials are working on a long-term plan to determine facility needs and plan for fixing them. A community committee is working on that plan, with the goal of releasing it by June 30. 

Ballots must be postmarked by Feb. 11. Grant County also provides boxes in each community where ballots can be deposited. The ballot drop box in Mattawa is located at 210 Government Road, the parking lot of Mattawa Community Health Clinic. 

    Mattawa Elementary students deliver supplies to a classroom. Wahluke School District voters will decide the fate of a capital levy designed to pay back a loan used to replace Mattawa Elementary’s aged HVAC system.