Voters should receive ballots in the mail soon for the Feb. 8 special election.
The Clallam County Auditor’s Office has mailed to registered voters a total of 21,613 ballots, some to residents of the Port Angeles School District and others to residents of the Quillayute Valley School District.
Both districts have placed replacement maintenance and operations property tax levies on the ballot.
The Auditor’s Office did not have at hand on Thursday a breakdown of how many ballots were mailed to voters in each district.
Completed ballots must be mailed or hand-delivered by 8 p.m. Feb. 8 to be counted.
Ballots can be taken, in Port Angeles, to the auditor’s office at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., or placed in a drop box at the courthouse; in Sequim, to Sequim Motor Vehicle Licensing Office, 1001 E. Washington St., Suite 5, or to Sequim City Hall, 152 W. Cedar St.; and in Forks to the Forks District Court lobby, 502 E. Division St., Forks.
Both districts are asking for a small increase over the property tax levies now in place, which will expire at the end of 2011.
If approved, the levies would appear on 2012 property tax bills.
Quillayute Valley School District also has 142 voters in Jefferson County, said Donna Eldridge, county auditor.
In Port Angeles, voters will decide whether or not to approve a four-year levy which would collect about $8.2 million in the first year and successively a little more each year.
Although the amount of the levy would go up a little each year, the estimated rate of $2.65 per $1,000 assessed valuation is expected to stay the same.
That means that the owner of a $200,000 home in Port Angeles would pay $530 a year in property taxes to the school district — about $44 more than the current levy.
The revenue would pay for extracurricular activities and transportation for those activities, said Jim Schwob, business director for the district.
It also would help pay for programs not fully funded by the state, he said.
For example, the state pays for special education, but only up to a certain percentage of student population.
If a district exceeds that percentage, it must make up the difference on its own, Schwob said.
In Forks, the levy amount was increased by about $60,000 per year, in order to bring the revenue up to the level that would get the most state-matching dollars, Quillayute Valley School District Superintendent Diana Reaume said.
The two-year levy would bring in $626,348 each year with an estimated rate of $1.41 per $1,000 assessed valuation.
That means that the owner of a $200,000 home would pay about $282 per year in property taxes.
If the levy passes, the district hopes to reinstate its music program, replace the roof of one of the high school gymnasiums and upgrade the heating system at Forks Elementary School.
The Jefferson County Auditor’s Office has mailed a total of 21,700 ballots to registered voters — 21,447 on Wednesday to voters living within Jefferson County and 253 Jan. 7 to military service members overseas, Eldridge said.
Voters will decide upon proposed sales tax increase of 0.3 percent, as well as property tax levies for the Port Townsend and Chimacum school districts.