Not Over Yet, but Kennewick, Finley, Prosser Levies Failing
According to the latest update from the Benton County Auditor's office (as of 4 PM Wednesday afternoon 4-26), a trio of school operational levies that are being re-run are failing.
Kennewick, Finley, Prosser levies trailing
You may recall Kennewick voters passed their tech improvements levy in February, but narrowly failed the larger operations vote. Same for Finley and Prosser. Now, with about 5,000 votes left to tabulate, they are trailing again.
Kennewick 'down' by 625 votes
So far, there are 6,188 no votes to 5,493 yes in the Kennewick operations levy. In February, the operations levy failed by 332 votes. The District 'trimmed down' the revised levy somewhat, and held several public informational meetings about the plan. A total of 11,611 votes have been counted as of the latest update. The margin as of right now is 695 votes towards no.
KSD sent an email late Wednesday to parents and others who are signed up for their informational services, addressing that the levy was trailing. It read in part:
"School districts may only run the same ballot measure twice in a calendar year. This means the next time the district could run the EP&O levy again is February 2023.
If the levy does not gain the votes needed to pass, once results are final, district staff will be working with the school board to identify budget reductions for the 2022-23 school year."
Finley failing by an even larger margin than before
Again, with about 5,000 votes overall left to tabulate, the Finley (Riverview SD) operations levy is trailing by 56 votes. That's not a large margin, but in February the levy failed by 5 votes (370 to 365). A total of 602 votes have been counted so far.
Prosser also down
Out of 1,760 votes counted, the Prosser operations vote is also trailing, with 934 no to 826 yes votes, a difference of 108 votes. Last time, their levy failed by 118 votes. Prosser combines Benton County voters with a small handful (less than 100) of voters who reside in Yakima County but are part of the Prosser School District.
The next update is expected Friday, April 28th at 4 PM, according to the Auditor's Office.
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