A little more than a third of the South Whidbey ballots mailed to voters for Tuesday’s election were sent back by midweek, according to the Island County elections division.

The county mailed about 11,400 ballots to South End voters, and 4,100 had been returned by the end of the day Wednesday, Feb. 3.

South Whidbey voters will decide the fate of three property-tax levy requests on Feb. 9.

The South Whidbey School District is seeking approval of a three-year levy at a tax rate of $1.03 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a slight drop from the $1.06 tax rate that voters approved in 2008.

The replacement levy is broken into two parts.

The district is asking for 20 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, which will provide $700,000 for upgrades in technology and $250,000 to cover repairs to the leaky roofs in the two schools.

The second section of the levy request deals with continuing maintenance-and-operational expenses which are not fully funded by the state, including salaries, food service, utilities and transportation.

In the first year, that amount is 83 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, or $3.9 million — the same as in 2009. In the second and third years, the district will need roughly the same amounts to cover the costs of operations.

If the school levies are approved, they will cost the owner of a $300,000 home roughly $309 per year.

The South Whidbey Parks & Recreation District is seeking a renewal of the tax levy that pays for parks and programs. The levy rate for the four-year levy will remain constant at 15 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Should the levy pass, a person with a home valued at $300,000 would pay $45 per year.