Read more stories about 2008 ballot questions

WCSD #1
Shall the Board of County Commissioners of Washoe County be authorized to adopt an ordinance imposing an additional one-quarter percent sales and use tax in Washoe County beginning on July 1, 2009, and impose an additional governmental services tax of one-half percent per $1.00 valuation of vehicles based in Washoe County beginning on July 2, 2009, for the purposes acquiring, constructing, improving and equipping school facilities for the Washoe County School District?

Nearly half of the schools in Washoe County are more than 40 years old. Those decades have left many in need of repair and far behind in technology.

Alone among Nevada's counties, Washoe has no secondary source of income. After a couple of failed tries at getting new funding from the legislature, the school district and local lawmakers set up a community committee to study the problem and put a solution before the voters.

After most of a year's work, the committee came up with a package that seeks a quarter percent increase the the sales tax and a half a percent hike in the government services tax for vehicle registrations. It would raise more than $23 million dollars a year which would back $393 million in bonds between now in 2014.

School Superintendent Paul Dugan says the measure would provide more than a one-time fix. "Our schools are getting older, even our new schools will eventually age," he says. "And this would give us a means of dealing with the problem ongoing, so we wouldn't always be behind."

A look at a couple of schools in northeast Reno shows some of the problems...and what the district says WCSD 1 could accomplish.

After more than 40 years of use Glenn Duncan Elementary is showing its age. Ceiling tiles coming down, bathroom fixtures leaking, door locks that force a teacher to step outside during a lockdown, ancient boilers sharing space with maintenance supplies. The cinder block walls making posting educational materials difficult. One teacher had a false wall built at her own expense in order to post the kinds of things common in most classrooms.

Not so far away, is Rita Cannan Elementary. Same floor plan and until this year, the same problems. The district used this school as a pilot project to see what could be done with a 45 year old school...and it's made a big difference. Furniture was replaced. Some new energy efficient windows were installed. Heightened security has brought an end to vandalism. What was the boiler room now houses the schools IT equipment.

And remember that make-shift false wall at Glen Duncan? Here every classroom has the hottest educational tool on the market.
Think of the old blackboard reborn as a computer screen. It's called an interactive white board. Teachers love it...and say it's already having a marked effect on keeping their students engaged and learning.

No organized opposition to WCSD I has emerged, but the argument against passage on the ballot says it's all a matter budgeting. It state the district has spent available funds on other priorities and is now claiming only a tax increase can solve the problem.

The cost? An average household that spends $10-thousand dollars on taxable items could expect to pay an addition $25 dollars a year. The hike in the vehicle registration tax would cost nearly $15 dollars more per year.