Voters get final answer on the Wichita school bond election. Here’s the certified count

A $450 million bond issue for Wichita Public Schools has officially failed after Sedgwick County Commissioners certified election results Friday.

The bond lost by a wafer-thin margin, with “No” votes having a 319 vote lead, or 1% of the vote.

The commissioners, who also act as the county’s board of canvassers to certify election results, added an additional 535 ballots to be counted in the results when they met Thursday morning.

Most of those ballots, 328, were from voters who went to the wrong polling location on Election Day.

The district appeared to concede the race at its board meeting earlier this week, where it announced it would create a focus group, send out a survey, and create a fiscal oversight committee to look at what its next steps could be.

“With all votes now counted in the February 25 bond election, Wichita Public Schools will evaluate what we have learned to determine next steps,” the district said in a statement Monday. “We appreciate the community feedback we received during this process. Two things remain, regardless of the outcome: the district has a tremendous amount of facility needs and we will continue making every student future ready, even in our current learning spaces.”

Some on the Vote Yes campaign signaled on Election Day that the district could look at putting a smaller bond issue on the ballot.

USD 259 wouldn’t be the first district in the state of Kansas to do so in recent memory.

Voters in the Kansas City, Kansas school district rejected a $480 million bond issue in early 2024 – the district then downsized its plans to a $180 million bond issue, which passed several months later.

Decisions on a smaller bond vote and other options for the school board to consider on how the district should move forward likely won’t happen until this summer.

The bond opposition campaign said the election served as a lesson for the district to be more transparent and accountable, especially if it comes back for another bond issue vote.

“My hope is that the school board and the administration think twice before coming back to taxpayers with another potential bond,” Ben Davis said. “I think one of the things that we saw throughout this wasn’t just on taxes, but it was on transparency and accountability. A lot of unanswered questions, a lot of plans that just didn’t make sense in the short or in the long term.”

Only 14% of eligible voters came out for the bond issue election, according to the county election office.