school will no longer have ….
school will no longer have authority to collect extra local taxes, and its funding would drop by $675,000 per year. That would lead to a crash in the local tax rate, all the way down to an estimated $3.62 next year, but the district would then not be able to provide current staffing and program levels. Significant budget cuts would follow.
The new cap exemption referendum will ask voters for $1.1 million next year, and $1.4 million over each of the following four years. The $675,000 exemption will go away, meaning the actual local tax increase would be $425,000 next year and $725,000 annually after that.
The tax rate would climb to an estimated $7.97 next year with referendum approval, or about $189 on a $100,000 home. The rate is then projected to fall to $7.80 in the second year of the exemption and to $7.12 in the third year.
District Administrator Chris Lindner said at an Oct. 26 Board meeting that the additional local tax money will pay for rising educational costs. Those costs are continually rising, he said, but the revenue cap law limits the dollars the state kicks in to local districts.
“This is something that is needed to keep our doors open,” Lindner said.
The district does not need the full $1.1 million in the referendum’s first year to balance the budget, and Lindner said the extra funds will be used to address facility needs that have been on the Board’s to-do list for some time.
Among them, Lindner said, would be the elementary parking lot. A storm sewer under the lot is causing problems, and it would make sense for the district to replace that at the same time it repaves the lot to fix asphalt problems.
“When it does rain heavily, it does get backed up into our school,” Lindner said of the sewer line issue.
Paving work is also needed, he said, on the west side of the school in the circle drive and parking areas. Also, Lindner said, the district has to plan for replacement/ repair of the roof over the 1997 addition, which includes the library, elementary office, weight room and auto shop. That is expected to cost $200,000.
“These are some projects we are looking at for the next handful of years, some of them sooner,” Lindner said.
The Board has already taken action to replace the aging concession stand near the football/baseball field, with cement to be poured soon for a new structure and shop classes to help build the structure. The Board has also approved hauling in new material to level the baseball field infield, and shop classes are building new dugouts.
The Nov. 8 referendum has a different purpose that the one voters defeated in April. That referendum asked voters to approve an extra $12 million in local taxes for a school facility renovation/expansion plan that would have built a new school commons/cafeteria/central office on the west side and renovated several interior areas for shop classes, art, music, etc.
This referendum is strictly for day-to-day operational needs.
“Staff and programs are the big things,” Lindner said. “Eighty percent of districts in the state need operational referendums. It is just the way our state funding is. Until they change it, that is just how it’s going to be.”
Lindner said the Board has made no decisions on how the district will move forward financially in the event the referendum fails.
“We would start to really look and see what would need to be cut,” he said.
