Tuesday night was a good one for education in the region as voters in the Longview, Toutle and Toledo school districts went five-for-five approving multi-year levies that will replace existing imposts expiring at the end of 2011. While everyone wishes that the levy increases could have been smaller, residents seemed to recognize this was highly unlikely and voted to increase their own taxes to benefit their children.

Thanks to a variety of factors, the state of Washington can probably be divided between school districts recommending a significant levy increase and districts that will recommend such an increase at the first opportunity.

The current sour economy is, of course, the largest element. We’ve been in a recession environment so long that most districts’ initial moves to cut costs have long since been negated by persistent revenue shortfalls. Many capital projects scheduled for 2008, 2009 or 2010 that were delayed “until conditions improved” now need to be undertaken, usually with a higher degree of urgency attached.

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