All three Mineral County school boards have opted to increase permissive levies in order to meet current needs in the districts.

Last year Senate Bill 307 was passed, giving school districts authority to run up to a 10 mill permissive levy in order to raise funds for school facility repairs. A “permissive levy” is a mill levy that a local government body can legally institute of its own volition, without the approval of voters. Bill 307 requires the schools to adopt a resolution no later than March 31 for fiscal year 2018. The funds can be used for tuition, adult education, building reserve, transportation, and bus depreciation.

“Why legislators did this was because school districts couldn’t pass levies, no matter how many times they tried, they were voted down,” said Alberton Superintendent Steve Picard.

A criticism of the levy is that school districts generally don’t know how much funding they are going to get from the state until later in the summer, nor does the state have up-to-date taxable values for property until early August, said Superior Superintendent Scott Kinney. This results in the school boards passing a resolution guessing what the permissive levies are going to be and what the taxable values may be.

Alberton

After nearly an hour of debate from the Alberton School Board during their March meeting, their final decision was to take advantage of this legislation and imposed a $30,000 permissive levy on Alberton residents. The money is earmarked for the building reserve fund. Currently the fund has $57,000 which Picard said, “is not a whole lot of money. It can go from that amount to zero overnight if the boiler goes out or if the roof needs repair.”

If the building reserve fund runs out, then the money would come out of the general fund which would impact funding for students and teachers. School board members, chaired by Andy Knapp, discussed the possible ramifications of passing the levy. They worried that it could have an adverse impact on voters when they ask for a larger levy in the future, “that’s the scary part, we can’t do everything we need with $30,000 but we can take it and then get voted against when we present a levy for $50,000,” Knapp said.

Historically, the Alberton community has supported levies for the school and they hope the public will continue to do so in the future.

“We get feedback from people on a fixed income. Their social security check didn’t go up and though it’s not much money, they notice it in November when they get their property tax and it may have gone up ten dollars,” said Picard.

During the meeting, several parents expressed support for the levy and said they would continue to support the school and its future needs. Some parents suggested the board also notify the public through direct mail or other sources with additional information regarding how the funds will be used.

Superior

In the March 21 issue of the Mineral Independent, Superior’s notice of “Resolution of Intent to Impose an Increase in Levies” showed an overall decrease of $7.68 for the “estimated impact for a home of $200,000”. But, as Kinney stated, these are estimates and schools won’t know the exact budget numbers until later this fall and the budget could change.

The Superior notice also listed current projects and what the funds will be used for including repair/replace HVAC System in the Elementary and High School buildings; repair the floor structures in both schools; and lighting.

The report showed a decrease in Adult Education, Transportation, Tuition, and Building Reserve with a .01 Mill increase in Bus Depreciation.

St. Regis

St. Regis School put their notice in the March 28 issue of the paper with an overall increase of $15.24 for the estimated tax impact on a $200,000 home. The two largest increases were in Transportation with a 2.76 Mill increase ($7.46) and a 3.10 Mill ($8.38) increase for tuition. There was a small decrease in Adult Education and Building Reserve. The final report from Alberton was not available.