More on the budget flier

Kristin Yates writes:

There was another big problem with the mailer. There was a pretty significant number problem. Equalized value for property tax was stated as 1,999,308,341, and the DPI numbers ended up at $1,877,729,956. I assume this is a timing problem since these numbers were late, published the 23rd.

THE ERROR IS HUGE THOUGH. The mill rate was shown to increase only 4.5% despite the levy going up 12.86%. In reality, the mill rate goes up 12.4%. in the final numbers.

The discrepancy noted between the budget flier and the actual numbers approved at the annual meeting is correct. The difference arises from the fact that the state “Equalized Property Value” was not reported to the district until October 23rd, after the flier was mailed. The estimates that had been used for equalized value were too high, the actual increase came in at only 1.43%.

However on average this makes no difference to property taxes. How’s that? The total amount of money raised by the district from property taxes is fixed by the state school funding formula and any referenda- the district is budgeted to raise $23 million from taxes this year. On the other hand the tax paid on each property is the product of the value of the property and the mill rate. If the total increase in the property value is less, then the mill rate will increase; conversely if the total property value increases faster than the revenue limit then the mill rate will fall. We have seen the mill rates decrease in 6 of the last 10 years, and last year the increase was only 0.3%. Of course what happens to the taxes on a particular piece of property depends on the individual valuation of that property.

The lower equalized property value for the district does in the end increase the proportion of state aid to the district resulting in a smaller total increase in property taxes.

You will note from the flier that this year our state aids decreased about $1.2 million, largely due to declining enrollment in prior years. This trend will be reversed next year given our current increasing enrollment, but it does represent a significant shift toward property taxes in the district.