It's not your fault if you have a panic attack anytime you get near a ballot these days.
Last November, despite the valiant efforts of Portland and other cities around the country, we still wound up with a president who lost the popular vote by a whopping 2,864,974 votes, and who is only beginning to offer glimpses of how ugly he can make our daily lives.
But the work of a democracy shuffles on. Once again, a ballot has arrived in your mailbox and you should fill it out and drop it off by 8 pm tomorrow (May 16). This time around, the election largely concerns who’ll lead local school districts facing pressing budget challenges. The Mercury has rarely endorsed in school board races, and we didn’t this time, either.
Instead, here are our recommendations for three measures Portlanders will see on their ballots. Two involve changes to the City Charter, Portland’s foremost governing document. The more important one could dramatically alter the fate of the city’s schoolchildren.
Happy voting! (Seriously, you still need to vote.)
This is far and away the main event of the May 16 election.
Portland Public Schools is asking voters to approve a plan to improve the health and safety of its dilapidated and lead-ridden schools. If passed, PPS would use $790 million in property tax bonds to renovate Benson and Madison high schools, and completely rebuild Lincoln High and Kellogg Middle School. The plan would also include seismic improvements, safety upgrades, and removal of dangerous materials (like lead, asbestos, and radon) for all schools in the district.
If $790 million seems like a lot, that’s because it is. The measure PPS is putting before voters amounts to the largest property tax bond in state history.
What’s that mean for your wallet? In the short term, the bond will increase property taxes by $1.40 per $1,000 of assessed value—$280 a year for a house assessed at $200,000 (note that this is not the same as a house with a market value of $200,000). The rate would fade after that, but if PPS has its way, your property taxes would stay the same. That’s because if this measure passes, PPS will ask for another, slightly smaller bond issuance in 2021.
In fact, the district has designs on six bonds, stretching for the next 30 years—money that would pay for extensive renovations of Portland’s aging schools. This is the big vote, though—if this measure passes, PPS would merely have to ask voters to re-up the bond every four years to keep its revenues in place.
We’re no happier than you are to shell out the cash, but the fact is our schools need work. While expensive, this school bond is extremely necessary.
The last district-wide school renovation was in 1945. The average PPS school is 77 years old. Our public schools are old, gross, and dangerous, and this measure is vital to bolstering Portland’s reputation for high-quality public education.