Credit where no credit is due--

In this week's Herald-Independent Tom Reason delivers kudos to the school board for the decreased mill rate taxpayers we'll see in next year's bills. But no thanks are necessary, really - because it's not up to us! The tax levy and mill rate are essentially determined by the state funding formula.

This is how it works: the state has a complicated formula based on enrollment and previous funding which dictates the "revenue cap": the maximum revenue each district can raise. The state then tells the district how much of that revenue the state will provide. The difference between that state aid and the revenue cap then can be levied on local property. The mill rate ends up being the amount the district can levy divided by the total value of property in the district. (If property value goes up the mill rate will go down and vice-versa, because the total amount is fixed.)

So the slightly smaller levy this year is a natural consequence of the state budget which cut $650 per pupil from the magic funding formula for the revenue cap, nothing we on the board did.

Of course the school district could choose not levy to the revenue limit, but even after the million dollar reductions to compensation related to the "budget repair bill" the district was still more than $1.5 million in the hole. The deficit was made up by using all our federal stimulus funds and more than $900K in cuts.


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Speaking of budget cuts - the administration reported that there are 29 class sections in the high and middle schools that exceed class size guideline of 30 students.  Last year that number was 4.

We can argue about how to best manage the situation, but the big picture is that we can't cut the budget a million at a whack without reducing services to students.