Petition creates funding dilemma for district

Some of you may have heard some discussion regarding a protest petition that has been circulated in the community.  Last last week I was notified by the County Clerk that a protest petition has been received in the clerk’s office.  The protest petition was to the resolution that the Board of Eduction has passed in late February for the Capital Outlay mill levy.

The state requires that school districts set their maximum budget authority for capital outlay funds every five years.  Our resolution expired this year and in order to levy any amount of capital outlay the board must pass new resolution.  The state also sets the maximum budget authority for school capital outlay funds.  The maximum in Kansas currently is 8 mills, which is up from 6 mills which was the amount when the last resolution was passed by the USD 336 Board.  Approving the 8 mill maximum budget authority does not mean that the board is raising its mill levy, it just gives the board the authority to levy up to that amount.  The reason the maximum was raised to 8 mills is due to the fact that the Kansas Legislature is placing more responsibility on the local school board to finance schools.  An example of that is that in years past when the school board levied one mill of capital outlay the state would provide 46% of that amount to the district.  This pass year the legislature eliminated that 46% for capital outlay, (they did not eliminate the 46% for bonds for construction, just capital outlay).  Since I have been here the board has never raised the capital outlay mill levy over 4 mills.  This past year the amount was 2.25 mills.  It was the consensus of the board and I agree that in these times of serious financial constraints it would be wise to have the authority in case of emergencies.

To get to the point of what the protest means.  Since 10% of the registered voters of USD 336 signed the petition there now must be an election to determine if the board can levy capital outlay funds up to 8 mills.  This item is on the agenda for tonight’s school board meeting.  It is first on the agenda.

The board has one of three choices.  1) Call a special election for a vote on the question, 2) wait till the primary election, which is August 4 and put the question on that ballot, 3) wait till November and put it on the general election.

In number 1 the school district would have to pay the full amount for the cost of the special election; in number 2 the board would have to pay for the set up and printing of the ballots as they pertain to the question – the district would have to do that in all 3 options.  Number 3 is really a bad choice; if the board waited till November to put the question on the ballot we would not be able to levy any capital outlay for this coming school year.  The 2nd choice has its challenges also, we would be cutting it very close to have the election, get the election certified, then publishing the budget (must be published in the paper at least 10 days prior to the hearing) and then having the budget hearing.  The deadline date to have the budget finalized is August 25th.

Some have asked why we don’t just levy what we did last year.  This is not an option our resolution for capital outlay has expired so we are at “0″ until there is an election.  If it passes, the board can levy up to 8 mills;  if it fails, we are still at 0.
This does create challenges for the district if we have no capital outlay.  We currently have two loan payments that must be paid next year, one is for the roof repairs on the Middle School that was made 4 years ago, and the final payment on the computers for the 1 to 1 lap top at the high school.  These two loans total $235,000.  (The computer payment has been made from LOB in the past; it was my intent to make this payment out of capital outlay next year, which would leave more in general fund and LOB for operating and salaries)  We would then have to depend on the General Fund to make these loan payments if we had no capital.