Needs, desires and requests won't stop coming, but how hard can governments squeeze taxpayers - or how hard can they squeeze themselves?

By Terry McConn of the Union-Bulletin

It happens every day.

When you go to the grocery store, shop for clothes for

the kids or decide on home improvements or a vacation.

It's always in the back of your mind:

Do I really need this? Can I afford it?

If I don't need it, do I want it badly enough to give up other things?

What is coming up that I have to save for?

Other than having to cope with unforeseen emergencies, you often have some power over your household budget. You can turn down the heat or turn up the air conditioner. Wear old clothes a little longer. Or maybe put off buying that new, used car.

But some payments we make to the community - for needs we can't afford individually - go up or down depending on factors largely out of any one person's control.

Take property taxes, for instance.

No homeowner can manipulate his or her property assessment. It's determined on fair market value, which fluctuates based on economic vagaries.

The other component - the tax rate per thousand - is established from the amount of money each district needs and is allowed to collect by law.

The budgets are approved by elected officials. Several entities receive a portion of property taxes to pay for general expenses. There again, individual taxpayers can feel pretty helpless.

But occasionally, about once a year or more, you get to weigh in on bond issues.

That's when governmental jurisdictions - most often cities and schools - ask voters to impose additional taxes on themselves to pay for specific new facilities or projects.

The money collected over a certain period (often 10 to 20 years) pays off the interest and face value of loans acquired by issuing bonds.

Such taxation requires 60 percent approval by voters at an election. And that's apparently getting more difficult to achieve, according to a Union-Bulletin analysis of bond issues put to voters within our circulation area (Walla Walla County and portions of Umatilla, Columbia and Garfield counties) since 1988.

In roughly the past 20 years, 67 bond issues were proposed. Thirty were approved; 37 were rejected.

But most of the rejections occurred since 1998.

Until that time, exactly 50 percent - or half - of 38 measures were given the nod. Since then, voters said yes to 11 of 29 requests, which was roughly 38 percent of the time.

Lately schools have suffered at the polls. Milton-Freewater voters have shied away from various improvement proposals five times since 2000. The highest rate of approval the district could muster was in May 2006 when 47 percent of voters said yes to building a new middle school.

Likewise, College Place had a rough time in 2004 attempting to persuade voters to build a high school and reconfigure the district's other buildings.

And the Walla Walla School District was crushed when the idea of a $53.95 million bond measure for a multitude of projects was supported last year by only 40.3 percent of the ballots cast.

Some voters apparently thought the proposal was too exhaustive and expensive, because a single component - a new Edison Elementary School - did get the nod in February of this year.

It received 61.14 percent approval.

Are voters getting stingier and more finicky this century as household incomes remain flat, but property assessments soar?

After all, residents OK'd expansion of Walla Walla High School with 67 percent approval in 1989. Nearly three-fourths of those going to the polls agreed to upgrade Garrison Middle School in 1992. Even more embraced a $6.7 million venture in 1993 to renovate Green Park Elementary School after controversy surrounding remodeling versus new construction was erased.

And still another tax was added after 68 percent of voters said yes to redoing Sharpstein Elementary School in 1999.

True, Fire District 4, College Place and Walla Walla voters said yes to new fire stations in recent years. And Milton-Freewater residents took a plunge in 1995 by approving a new swimming pool.

But some proposed projects can't seem to buy a break.

Although a 15-year bond measure was approved in 1995 for Walla Walla's juvenile detention center, residents have rejected two attempts since 2003 to build an aquatic center where kids could swim.

Often, project supporters don't give up and voters eventually acquiesce.

Other times, alternative funding packages are devised. Take sidewalks, lighting, benches and other improvements downtown. Voters in 1991 turned thumbs-down on a $990,000 bond proposal to help pay for a $3.4 million Main Street revitalization project.

Therefore, the plan was pared to $2.2 million, with the majority of work funded by downtown property owners.

In 1998, a $1.13 million bond issue to improve city parks went down to defeat. But that didn't stop volunteers from leading the charge for new playground equipment in Jefferson Park, for instance.

And streets are slowly being repaved despite the failure of a $3.8 million bond in 1998 to fix them.

The needs, desires - and requests - never stop coming.

We know the city of Walla Walla is soon going to consider asking for a new police station and dispatch center. Plans for a new library also are in the works.

And with last year's comprehensive but ill-fated bond request by the Walla Walla School District, we got a whiff of what those long-term requirements are.

"This community is pretty aware now of what our needs are,'' said board member Mary Jo Geidl after the measure's defeat. ``They're not going to go away.''

Series schedule

TODAY: Introduction to our series; History of projects in the Valley

FRIDAY: How do wishes come true, and what do we wish for?; Alternative ways to raise money for projects; The city has some new tools to get money for services, but how effective are they?; A rundown on property taxes - where they come from, where they go

SUNDAY: Future needs of College Place; What does Walla Walla High School need?; Information about school bonds; Comprehensive list of proposed projects in the Valley; Your chance to participate in our survey - and win free groceries