No special session means less school district funds

State Legislators announced yesterday that there would not be a special session. Gov. Gregoire had requested a one-day special session so legislators could address some budget-related bills that hadn't yet been acted on.
That short list of bills included one that would have increased the levy lid for school districts. For the Stanwood-Camano School District, that would have meant an additional $149,666 it could have collected next year, according to 2009-10 budget estimates released at the Tuesday school board meeting.
School districts can only collect levy dollars equal to 24 percent of what they receive from the state. If the amount of state funding goes down, so does the maximum amount the district can collect.
In the 2008-09 school year, the Stanwood-Camano School District's levy represented about 18.4 percent of its total revenue at about $9 million.