Local school politics shows the power of supermajority requirement for bonds
We take a peek inside the battle between an Eastside school district and local NIMBYs.
Editor’s Note: In Sara’s community, the signage critiquing the Issaquah School District’s latest bond measure is seemingly everywhere—again. Because of the supermajority requirement to pass school bonds in Washington, the school district can get more than 50% of the vote and still lose. We explore the political history of the supermajority requirement in Washington, with the friction between bond backers who want a new high school campus and the neighborhood NIMBYs who don’t, as an example of how statewide policy goes local.
Nestled between the eastside suburbs of Issaquah and Sammamish is about 40 acres of forest land that used to be a bible college and a church. The Issaquah School District, which serves about 18,500 students across 27 schools in multiple cities and towns, has been trying to build its fourth high school there to ease the considerable overcrowding at its three largest high schools.1 That means the forest would give way to classrooms, parking, sports fields, cafeterias, and hundreds of teenagers. Some of the would-be school’s neighbors are not OK with it and have fought the plan every step of the way. These fights have cost the district about $20 million in legal fees and even more money as delays lead to higher building costs.
The fight started in about 2016 with an attempt to designate the Providence Heights campus as a special landmark to block the church's demolition and the sale of the parcel to the school district. Since then, development opponents filed at least nine appeals and motions with various agencies and courts, in the cities of Issaquah, Sammamish, and King County, a school district spokesperson told The Observer. After the district finally bought the property in 2020, neighbors tried to block environmental review, permitting, and zoning efforts, before turning to campaigns against the bond measures necessary to pay for it.
We offer this prologue, and the larger tale, to illustrate the long-running debate over Washington’s constitutional requirement that school districts win over 60% of voters to issue debt for new construction.
The money the school district collected from the 2016 bond wasn’t enough to build the new campus, particularly after pandemic-related inflation skyrocketed the cost of materials and labor.2 So last year, the district asked voters to approve a massive $642 million bond to build the fourth high school and modernize other school buildings.
Slightly more than 50% of local voters approved the Issaquah bond measure, which would have cost about 29 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value—about $290 annually for a $1M house. But under the law, that’s not a narrow win but a nearly 10-point loss.3
The supermajority requirement for school bonds above a certain threshold has been in the state constitution since it was written in 1889, a legal historian told The Observer. In 2007, voters rolled back the supermajority requirement for school district levies, which are property taxes used to pay for school operations and programs but don’t involve taking on debt.4
Depending on who you ask in Washington, the supermajority requirement is an essential firewall against the tyranny of the majority that creates a vital check on government against reckless taxation.5 Others argue it gives a minority of voters undemocratic power to thwart the will of the broader community. Most school bonds around the state fail, particularly when faced with strong opposition.
Issaquah school district amends bond measure, but NIMBYs stay mad
After Issaquah’s $642M bond measure failed in last year’s general, the school district held listening sessions with the community, where they learned tax sensitivity was the top concern. In the special election on Feb. 11, Issaquah voters will consider a pared-down $232M bond that would allow the school district to build the campus the district has planned for nearly a decade.
Notably, the leaner bond would allow Issaquah property owners to continue paying the combined average tax rate of $3.09 for all school district taxes. In other words, the combined tax rate for all the school district’s bonds and levies would stay roughly the same for homeowners even with a “yes” vote on the bond, because the school district can replace old debt as bonds expire with new debt from the 2025 bond without bumping the total combined rate. The projected stable tax rate accounts for interest payments on the debt, and the school district plans to refinance to reduce the interest burden. More context is needed, here, though. If the school district were to run bonds and levies in future elections, which it plans to, the measures that pass would likely increase the combined average tax rate from school district taxes for property owners.
The Committee of Concerned Advocates for Responsible Education (CCARE) in Issaquah isn’t convinced. Since January, the local group posted signs throughout the community urging “no” votes on the bond and launched a blitz on social media. The committee’s messaging casts doubt on the school district’s credibility, skepticism about the claims of a stable property tax rate, and questions whether the new campus is even necessary. All arguments the school district disputes.
What is not overtly said by CCARE, but is widely understood, is that this fight is not just about taxes, a school district’s financial management practices, or even environmental concerns. It’s the time-honored community tradition of NIMBYs, or not-in-my-backyard protestors, versus builders and groups wishing to develop.
The site where the district plans to build a new high school campus is next to the Providence Point retirement community, whose homeowner’s association was the top contributor to the CCARE political action committee in 2024 and 2025, Public Disclosure Commission records show.
Dave Osmer, a Providence Point resident and campaign chair of CCARE, said the committee’s concerns started because the site of the high school would interfere with the quality of life at the retirement community, but that their concerns and messaging have evolved to a broader critique of the school district’s financial and development practices. Osmer, who did some local political work in Issaquah in the 1970s, said he and other CCARE members didn’t oppose a school bond or levy until April 2022, when the school district asked voters to approve a capital construction levy to help pay for the new high school.6
The fight between Providence Point retirees and the Issaquah School District is described as a “David vs. Goliath” situation by CCARE in some of its materials. In many ways, it’s true. CCARE was outspent two to one in the 2024 general by the Volunteers for Issaquah Schools, whose contributors include school district backers and builders and developers who stand to benefit from new construction. The Issaquah School District conceivably has more backers than opponents, with many residents relocating to the community because of its top school ratings.7 This is another reason why the median home value in the district eclipsed $1.18M in 2023, more than double the median home value in the state of Washington.8
But since school bonds need at least 60% of the vote to pass, David has an outsized advantage over Goliath. Sen. Deb Krishnadasan, D-Gig Harbor, who is critical of the supermajority requirement on bonds, invokes a traditionally conservative point in her arguments against the idea: Local control for school districts.
”There is some appetite to keep the control at the local level and let communities decide.” Krishnadasan said
A brief political history of the supermajority on school bonds
Washington is one of 12 U.S. states that has some type of supermajority requirement on school bond measures, according to Ballotopedia. Many other states have other types of restrictions on school bonds, such as Georgia, which requires school taxes to expire after five years.
The state’s supermajority haters, which include virtually every education stakeholder and many state Democrats, would argue that instead of submitting to the will of the majority, school districts trying to pass bonds must contend with the sometimes-minority of voters who won’t vote for a property tax increase, ever, either because they can’t afford it or on principle.
Supermajority proponents include most, though not all, of the state’s Republican caucus. They’re joined by many tax-averse property owners who may not understand how good they have it. Supermajority backers would say the 60% threshold is a good thing because it requires school districts to run fiscally responsible bond measures and achieve broad consensus on any property tax increase and long-term debt.
Democratic lawmakers, and at least one Republican, have sought to overturn the supermajority requirement for school bonds in past sessions, with little luck. Putting an amendment to the constitution before voters requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. The issue last came up for a vote in 2019 when Senate Republicans voted against such a proposal, which fell five votes short of the 33 required.
Then-Sen. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, proposed a compromise to lower the threshold on school bonds from 60% to 55%, but Democrats rejected it.
About six years on, this is the very compromise that Senate Democrats hope to strike. Krishnadasan was the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 5186 which would soften the supermajority threshold to 55%, but at least some of today’s Republicans would need to buy in.
Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, is the prime sponsor of House Bill 1032 which would drop the supermajority requirement entirely on school bonds in favor of a simple majority. House Republicans tell us that is exceptionally unlikely.
“Holding the line on this is important,” Deputy Minority Leader Chris Corry, R-Yakima, told us. “This is an important taxpayer protection.”
Another barrier to a 55% supermajority compromise is Democrats who don’t want to settle for half-measures.
Corry said a bond vote failure requires the school district to listen to voters and recalibrate their expectations, which is what happened in Issaquah between the November general and upcoming special election.
However you slice it, the law today is unless the school district can achieve that supermajority vote and pass a local bond, the state won’t hand over the matching cash from the state’s school construction account.
School districts that cannot pass a bond are left with aging or damaged school buildings that are overcapacity or in disrepair, which have clear impacts on student learning and safety. The state Supreme Court stopped short of saying the state has abdicated its paramount duty to public education in a 2023 ruling on state governance of school construction dollars, but many believe it's only a matter of time before the Supremes shift the political landscape on school construction requirements, similar to the 2012 McCleary decision that led to future “fixes” on school financing.
There’s a reason bonds run in off-years
The climate for running a school bond in Issaquah, and elsewhere in Washington, was uniquely challenging last November, given that it was a highly contested presidential election year with broad voter turnout.
Washington school districts everywhere were dealt major losses as 10 of 14 school bond measures failed to obtain the necessary votes.
What cannot be understated is that the Issaquah school bond was also extremely expensive at $642M, and involved a property tax hike for residents already feeling strapped by inflation.
School district officials offered a few reasons why the 2024 school bond was so expensive. First, the district followed the recommendations of the bond advisory committee, which is comprised of many school district insiders, including school administrators, parents, and students. The district hadn’t run a bond since 2016, so the committee recommended the 2024 bond roll out about six years' worth of improvements to school buildings, plus the cash to build the new high school, school district representatives explained. Another factor was the litany of unfunded mandates imposed on school districts by the state, including the looming deadline to make expensive environmental improvements to school buildings, which lawmakers may or may not waive this year.9
These reasons aside, the Issaquah bond was the second most expensive bond measure that appeared on local ballots last year, eclipsed only by a $732M bond in the Sumner School District in Pierce County, which voters passed with 64% of the vote. For comparison, the median home value in Sumner School District was about $536K, about half that of Issaquah homes.
There is another thing that is working against the school district in a big way: A state audit from the 2020-21 school year that found the district used bond dollars without the proper disclosures.10 The school district self-reported the findings to the auditor’s office after discovering the error. The audit was published in February 2024 and was picked up by The Seattle Times.
The audit has been used by the opposition to cast the school district as anything from financially negligent to outright corrupt. The reality is less scandalous, but such a critique is going to make local property owners wary of the school district’s financial stewardship.
The people who oppose the school bond measures and the Issaquah School District’s financial decisions are not limited to Providence Point retirees. There are many voters outside this community comprising the 49% who voted “no” during last year’s general election, for different reasons.
It’s been about a year since the audit was released, giving the current district leadership some distance from the results. It’s one of a few reasons why Issaquah schools may have a better shot of passing the $232M bond this year. Special elections tend to attract voters highly engaged in local issues. To pass the bond, about 25K people need to vote, and about 15K of those need to vote “yes,” according to projections by Volunteers for Issaquah Schools.
There is one factor that hasn’t changed though, and that’s the opposition from Providence Point, and other dissatisfied constituents making a buzz online.
Bare-knuckle online debate in a local news vacuum
Issaquah school bond proponents and opponents have relied on social media platforms such as Nextdoor, Facebook, and Reddit, to share information about the Issaquah school bond. It’s a notoriously bad setup for constructive debate and verifiable information and arguably is a format that benefits the oppositional minority in a supermajority vote.
The gutting of local news on the Eastside likely had some impact, too. Except for the Sammamish Independent, which is staffed by local high school student journalists, no reporters were assigned to cover the latest school bond campaigns and ask the necessary questions. And when 60% approval is the standard, it won’t take much to tilt a vote.
The opposition committee argues the school district will return to voters to ask for more levy dollars to help staff the school and “keep the lights on”. While enrichment levies are traditionally run by school districts every two to three years to pay for things such as music classes, sports uniforms, etc., the state is at least theoretically obligated to finance teacher salaries through apportionment and materials, supplies, and operating costs. What is true is Issaquah School District has been forced to use $102M in supplemental dollars to backfill the state’s undercutting of basic education since 2020, some of which is likely local levy dollars.
Construction delays lead to escalating costs
The rising cost of construction compounded with the litigation and appeals process, which created nearly eight years of delays for the district, has contributed to the staggering expense of building the new high school campus. It costs more to build in 2025 than it did in 2016, due to ongoing economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and other factors. Here are some of the numbers:
When the Issaquah School District first ran a bond measure in 2016, the cost to acquire and build the new high school campus was estimated to be about $120M, according to materials provided by the school district.
The latest numbers from 2024 show about $293M to build the campus, including the $20M already spent on planning, legal fees, etc. The 2024 estimate is more than double the 2016 estimate.
The school district says it needs about $139M to start building the high school campus, and, if voters approve the 2025 bond, the district plans to spend about $192M from the bond to build the new high school and remodel and expand Liberty High School. The school district collected about $53M from voters through a capital construction levy in 2022, which finances smaller, short-term construction projects, and saved $44M of that to use on the new high school campus. About $90M from the 2016 bond is still unspent, leaving about $135M for the project.
With the approval of the Issaquah city council, the school district baked in about $16M in accommodations for Providence Point residents in its estimates, such as a forest barrier between the school and retirement community. Osmer says the accommodations list is misleading and won’t change the detrimental impact the school will have on residents and the local creek.
If the 2025 bond is approved, the school district is “shovel ready,” and plans to start building as soon as possible, because the district is on a ticking clock. The school district’s building permits are set to expire in April, which means the district would have to invest more time and money into an already-finished bureaucratic process.
So what if the bond doesn’t pass?
In a previous meeting, members of the Issaquah school board discussed contingency plans to ease overcrowding on the three largest high school campuses if local measures fail and construction stalls. One example was to change from a middle school model to a junior high model, shuffling students in different grades across the district. Another was to stagger the school day so fewer students would be on campus at once. Immediately, one can anticipate expensive logistical complications for student transportation and pushback from the influential teacher’s union on many of these ideas, which could involve opening contracts to new bargaining—often a costly endeavor.
Community members who oppose the school bond measure have parroted these points as possible solutions to avoid building the new high school. But the actual cost of implementing these contingency measures versus simply building the campus that is already almost halfway paid for has not been borne out. We’ll know soon if the Issaquah school bond measure can overcome the tyranny of the minority to get more than 60% of the vote this time.
SK
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Technically, the district has four existing high schools, but only three of them are “comprehensive” campuses, complete with sports fields and the like.
The 2016 bond was $518M to help update and build new school campuses, including a fourth high school. Of that money, $97M was used to purchase the land, and $120M was reserved for building the new campus, which is far below current estimates to build in 2025.
King County general election results show the margins were very narrow, with 94 more voters marking “yes” for the 2024 bond measure.
Fun fact: Then-ranking member on the Senate K-12 Education Committee, Republican Ed Orcutt, authored the opposition statement that ran in the 2007 voter guide.
The conservative think tank, The Hoover Institute at Stanford University, published an article in 1999 arguing for the expansion of the supermajority on fiscal matters as a protection against federal government overreach. Many of the arguments are still germane to traditional conservative ideas today.
The April 2022 levies required only a simple majority of the vote, and all passed.
The school district boasted a 95% four-year graduation rate in 2023, with 60% of staff holding master’s or doctorate degrees. Students score in the top 5% of state and national standardized assessments, according to information provided by the school district.
This number came from Census Reporter, which takes its numbers from the rolling 5-year average from the American Community Survey. The margin of error is a thing here, but the estimate feels consistent.
Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Chair Lisa Wellman introduced a bill that would allow school districts to request a 10-year extension on the compliance requirements outlined in the Clean Buildings Standard Act. Senate Bill 5190 was referred to the Environment, Energy & Technology Committee.
The district used 2016 bond dollars to pay for improvements to nearby Cougar Mountain Middle School, which was a project from the previous 2012 bond, but not the 2016 bond. That bond money is only flexible if the school district goes through the proper public disclosures, which the school district did not.
Great read! Surprised that $16M in accommodations is insufficient for the Providence Pointe community... it's unclear to me why they feel entitled to limit what is needed for our schools in land they do not own. Between not pulling the ladder from under you and keeping our property values high, hoping this right-sized bond passes!