By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
With just one dissenting vote Monday night, the Burlington Area School District finalized its 2015-16 budget and tax levy.
By a vote of 6-1, the School Board certified a $21.16 million tax levy. However, due to a rise in property values overall, the equalized property tax has dropped five cents to $11.04 per $1,000 of property value.
Actual tax bills will vary based on amount of property value change for individual residents.
The lone nay vote came from board member Phil Ketterhagen, who proposed an amendment to drop the tax levy to $20.89 million. That amendment died for lack of a second.
Ketterhagen then explained he would not vote in favor of the levy and budget because the district was levying beyond what it needed to for the year – with the extra going into the district fund balance.
“I do not believe the School Board needs to take money from taxpayers to put money in our savings account,” Ketterhagen said.
School Board Member Larry Anderson countered by pointing to the declining enrollment within the district – and the estimated $900,000 hit the district will take next year will take in the revenue limit as a result.
“You have to take a look at this thing longer than this year,” Anderson said. Ketterhagen responded by saying the district has ended up getting more state aid than originally projected two of the last three years, and that speculation on future budgets was “pure projection.”
“We are not budgeting for 2016-17 right now,” Ketterhagen said.
However, School Board Member Kevin Bird then asked if the district could tax to make up the amount in the future, to which both Anderson and Superintendent Peter Smet said no.
The district would have to propose an operating referendum to gain additional dollars if needed in future years. The drop in enrollment is expected to continue through at least 2020. Currently, BASD has 3,160 students.
The projected number for 2020 is 2,965. That number is close to 700 less than 2007, when there were 3,632 students enrolled in the district.
-
-
-
-
-