How Do School Bonds Work?

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» Frequently-asked questions

The process school districts use to fund their building projects is frequently misunderstood. School districts are funded largely by property taxes. Levies, passed every few years, fund learning, paying for computers, teacher assistants, and activities. Bonds, by contrast, are loans that fund the construction of buildings.

To help understand the relationship between school bonds and your property taxes, consider a community with just three homes.

$250,000 home

If the school district needs to collect $1000 from the community, it will place a measure on the ballot to request authority to collect that amount in taxes from the district. If the community approves that measure with a 60% majority, the school district can collect that amount (and no more than that amount) from the community. The amount of tax is divided proportionally among the property in the district, with a greater proportion for higher value homes. In a community with homes of equal value, the amount of tax is also equal.

$250,000 home
$333 tax

$1000 tax collected

If properties are revalued, as they were in Skagit County last year, the amount of tax will be reallocated among the properties, with homes paying different amounts of tax relative to each other. Note that the aggregate tax amount always remains the same.

$250,000 home
$250 tax

$500,000 home
$500 tax

$250,000 home
$250 tax

$1000 tax collected

If all the property values go up by the same percentage, the property tax paid by each property won't change:

$500,000 home

$333 tax

$500,000 home

$333 tax

$500,000 home

$333 tax

$1000 tax collected

If all the property values go up, but by varied amounts, some people may pay less in taxes, while others may pay more:

$500,000 home

$250 tax

$1,000,000 home

$500 tax

$500,000 home

$250 tax

$1000 tax collected

If, on the other hand, more people move into the area or improve their property by building new houses (as has happened recently within Anacortes School District, and is expected to continue), taxes will go down:

$250,000 home

$250 tax

$250,000 home

$250 tax

$250,000 home

$250 tax

New $250,000 home
$250 tax

$1000 tax collected

Still have questions? Please contact us.