East Valley School District bond fails again

After a February failure, East Valley School District's $220 million bond is faring much worse this time around.

The bond was trailing significantly at 49.7% approval on election night. Bonds require a supermajority 60% voter approval to pass.

"That's heartbreaking," outgoing Superintendent Brian Talbott said under his breath at an election night results watch event.

The February attempt failed with 54.6% support.

The $220 million bond would have paid for the replacement of the district's 64-year-old high school and 57-year-old middle school, as well as smaller projects at each school in the district. At a new middle school, sixth-graders would have joined seventh- and eighth-graders.

East Valley is used to its bonds failing; its last successful bond passed in February 1996, raising nearly $12 million for the district. Eight subsequent attempts to pass bonds all failed, the most recent in February, when the district ran an identical measure to the one on April ballots.

February's attempt was the district's first since 2013, when 37% of voters approved the $65 million measure.

Since, the district has relied on capital levies to fund repairs and small construction projects in the district, but this revenue wouldn't be enough to build a new school.

That's the route East Valley likely will go to pay for smaller repairs on their oldest schools that the bond sought to replace. Capital levies are shorter-term tax collections that only require 50% voter support to pass. They don't require a district to go into debt, like a bond issue does.

The less-than 50% support the bond earned Tuesday night wasn't reassuring to district officials when considering a future capital levy.

"Now the concern is a capital levy because that's not enough to get a capital levy," Talbott said.

Schools are only permitted to attempt two bond measures each calendar year, so East Valley can't run another bond until February 2027 at the soonest.

In an interview last week, East Valley school board member Carolyn Petersen said if this April bond fails, the board would consider sending to voters a capital levy to November ballots.

With that revenue, the district could do some "Band-Aid" and "duct tape" repairs to schools district leaders maintain need replacing.

After that, a bond isn't out of the question in future years, Petersen said.

"We'd slap on those Band-Aids, and then maybe even start the process over," Petersen said. "We'd just look at the next year and be like, 'OK, what do we need? Where are we going? What is construction looking like?' "

Talbott said he knew the "timing couldn't be worse," he said, considering the general state of the economy and already escalating costs in areas like groceries and gas prices. He said he feels the community's support for his students, and recognizes local tax measures like his district's bond are the only area voters have a direct say.

But school districts aren't immune to economic stressors either, Talbott said. He knows the $220 million the bond would have generated won't go nearly as far years down the line and "our buildings still need care," he said.

Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.

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This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 11:35 PM.