First, let me make it clear that the Vashon school board didn’t ask me to write this. The Beachcomber did. I’m not speaking for any board member but myself.

The school district’s capital bond proposal got hammered pretty decisively in March. It was obviously not the right package at the right time. Whether the same package could have passed in a better economic climate or a slightly different package could have passed in this one are pointless questions. The board isn’t asking them. No one on the board is suggesting that we just tweak the old proposal a bit and run it past the voters again.

But no one doubts that we have to do something. Even if you believe — as I do — that buildings won’t do much for education except keep the rain off, the fact remains that we’ll have to replace major building systems before long and that — like virtually every other American school district — we’re on a treadmill of paying for computer hardware that goes out of date almost as soon as it’s bought. And those are the things we know about; something we don’t anticipate is sure to happen.

We still have money in our capital projects budget, left over from the last capital levy, but there’s no more coming in, and our capital projects fund balance will continue to erode. When it goes, we can borrow to meet emergencies, but that’s not a long-term plan. We can take money from the general fund, but that comes right out of the classroom, and besides, there’s not a lot of uncommitted cash to take.

What all this means is that we’ll have to ask the voters for capital soon, probably early next year.

Some people think they know what we’ll end up asking for. I don’t. There are plenty of unanswered questions, the following among them:

How many years down the road should we look? The bond that voters rejected would have solved all the major capital problems we foresaw for the next 20 years. One can argue that it’s more cost-effective to try for a 20-year fix than for a series of five- year fixes, but that’s not the only way to go. I’ve talked about having the clutch go out in an old beater car. Putting a new clutch into that car may not pencil out, but if you can’t afford or don’t want to buy a new car, it’s what you do. It’s not wrong, either; it’s just one way of dealing with the problem. Do we want to fix up some of our beater buildings so they’ll last into the next decade? Maybe so.

Do we want to put all our capital needs into a bond issue? Do we want to put some into a two- or four-year levy? Do we want to put all of our “technology” expenses — i.e., our purchases of computer and communications hardware — into a regular “tech levy,” as some districts do, and put all the other stuff into a bond?

Is there a magic number of dollars below which 60 percent of the voters will vote yes and above which more than 40 percent will vote no?

How many kids should we plan for? Should off-Island kids make up part of the total?

Where do “needs” stop and “wishes” start?

Some people complained to me before the bond election that they’d be happy to spend that kind of money on education, but they didn’t want to spend it on buildings. Unfortunately, using bond money to pay for education isn’t an option. The bond proposal that failed couldn’t have paid for teachers or textbooks or, for that matter, school buses or maintenance.

Forgive me if you already know this, but state law forces us to treat capital and operating funds differently. We can’t sell bonds or pass capital levies to operate the district day-to-day. We can’t rely on the state to pay the full cost of operating it, either. That’s why we have “maintenance and operation” (M&O) or “special” levies.

And that’s why they’re not really special. Virtually every district in the state relies on them. Our existing M&O levy is about to run out. Therefore, we’ll have to ask voters to pass another M&O levy next year, whatever we decide about capital.

Actually, we’ll probably ask people for money in two or three separate chunks: an M&O levy plus a capital levy, a bond, or both. I don’t see much choice.

Could we have managed the district’s finances and maintained its buildings a little better? Probably. Could we avoid having to ask for money in the coming year? In my opinion, not a chance.

— Dan Chasan is a member of Vashon Island’s school board.