The Douglas County School District might not be getting a boost each year to increase teacher and staff salaries, according to early election returns Wednesday.

The request to the taxpayers for $60 million per year, in perpetuity, is specifically intended to make the district more competitive in hiring and would have added about $255 per year in property taxes for a half-million-dollar home, according to the district.

“If you’ve been watching the results, it was a real squeaker. We got about 49.3% support,” Superintendent Erin Kane said. “And while we are disappointed that is so close, our polling in May was at 39%. So, to have come 10 percentage points in just that short amount of time is actually really, really great.”

As of 4 p.m. Wednesday the ballot issue was losing by a narrow 2,252-vote margin, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

Despite the narrow margin, both Kane and Mike Peterson, DCSD Board of Education President, were skeptical the district could pull out a last-minute victory for the measure.

“I looked today, we picked up some numbers overnight. By my math it was currently 49.4% for and then 50.6% against,” said Peterson. “I don’t expect it to change. I’d love for it to change, but don’t expect it to.”

“I think they have about 12 to 15,000 votes still to count, but it’s unlikely to make a significant enough difference to change the outcome,” said Kane. “I agree with President Peterson.”

Kane is not deterred by the impending loss though.

“From my perspective, we will continue to work with our community, to talk to our community about how our schools are funded and about the needs of our community over the next 12 months,” Kane said.

The next opportunity to return to the voters with a request is next year.

A second district ballot issue asked to increase district debt by $450 million, with a bond repayment cost of $775 million. The bond request is for “updating and performing critical capital improvements and maintenance” at existing schools. It was losing by more than 14,000 votes as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State.

The bonds were also designated for implementing school safety upgrades, expanding two existing schools and building three new schools to alleviate crowding.

A Littleton ballot measure asking for up to $975,000 annually from a 5% tax on lodging to support arts, culture, tourism and visitor promotion appears to passing by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

Littleton City Clerk Colleen Norton told the Denver Gazette she did not expect vote number to change much. She said that as of Wednesday at 1 p.m. the measure was passing by 64% to 36%.

A total of 15,853 votes were cast out of a city population of just over 45,000.