Referred to the People by the District Board.
Local option levy renewal to maintain teaching positions, classroom programs
Question: Shall District preserve class sizes, programs, educators; levy $1.64 per $1,000 assessed value for operations for five years beginning 2024-2025. This measure renews current local option taxes.
Summary: Lake Oswego School District’s current local option levy was approved by voters in 2019. The operating levy funds one-third of all teaching positions in the District. Levy has been approved by Lake Oswego School District voters since first introduced in 2000.
This measure renews the levy at its current rate and would not increase property tax rates.
Levy resources would preserve and continue to fund:
• Educator positions to preserve class sizes and unblended grade levels
• Instructional time to keep the current number of school days
• Elective programming such as music, art, engineering, and technology
• Mental health supports for students’ well being
Funds subject to accountability measures, including annual audits and School Board oversight.
If approved, this measure would continue the current local option levy of $1.64 per $1,000 of assessed value and is estimated to raise approximately $16,000,000 In 2024-2025, $16,500,000 in 2025-2026, $17,000,000 in 2026-2027, $17,500,000 in 2027-2028, and $18,000,000 in 2028-29, for a total of $85,000,000 over five years.
Explanatory Statement:
As a renewal, approval of this levy would protect class sizes, educator positions, instructional days, and elective programming in Lake Oswego School District without increasing current property tax rates. This levy would renew at the same rate as the five-year local option school operating levy approved by voters in May 2019, which expires on June 30, 2024. The levy renewal would continue to provide the Lake Oswego School District with approximately 15% of its annual general operating budget, funding the equivalent of one-third of all teaching positions in the District.
Lake Oswego School Levy Renewal
Measure 5 fundamentally changed Oregon’s public school funding in 1990, eventually reducing Lake Oswego School District’s operating budget by more than 30%. In 1999, state law gave individual communities the ability to supplement state funding for their local schools. Lake Oswego School District voters first approved the local option levy in 2000, allowing the District to add back some educational opportunities previously eliminated. Lake Oswego School District voters have since approved a local option levy in 2004, 2008, 2013, and 2019.
What the Lake Oswego School Levy Renewal Would Provide
Renewing the operating levy would protect and continue to fund educator positions that preserve class sizes; single-grade elementary classrooms; the current number of school days; elective programming opportunities such as music, art, engineering, and technology; and mental health supports for students’ wellbeing.
These resources funded by the levy would continue supporting the Lake Oswego School District’s educational standards. Lake Oswego School District is ranked the number one school district, and its teachers are ranked the best, in Oregon by Niche. In its annual 2022 school rankings report, US News and World Reports ranked Lake Oswego and Lakeridge High Schools in the top 5% of all high schools in the nation. Lake Oswego School District ranked the highest academic achievement and growth in grades K-12 and graduated the highest percentage of students in four years of all large comprehensive K-12 school districts in Oregon, per Oregon Department of Education 2021 reporting.
Lake Oswego School Levy Renewal Would Cost
If approved, beginning in July 2024, property owners would continue to pay the same tax rate as the current local option school levy of $1.64 per $1,000 of assessed value. The owner of a home assessed at the average home assessed value of $500,000 would continue to pay a maximum of approximately $68 per month or $820 per year for the local option school levy.
Local option levy funding, and all District finances and expenditures, are subject to accountability measures, including regular annual audits and School Board oversight to ensure funds are used as intended.
All revenue generated by the levy renewal would continue to be used to support Lake Oswego School District and its students.
Submitted by:
Mary Kay Larson
Executive Director of Communications