It includes a surplus to offset future aid decreases
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
It was all but a formality Tuesday evening – the real drama having occurred a night earlier in the Burlington High School gymnasium.
The Burlington Area School District Board of Education for the second time approved the proposed tax levy of $20.36 million for the 2011-12 school year. That is an increase of about 3.6 percent from 2010-11, but the impact is expected to be lessened by the closing of City of Burlington Tax Incremental Financing District 4.
Right now, the district is estimating the cost per $1,000 of equalized property value to be $10.17 – an increase from $9.76 last year. However, with the TIF district factored in – an additional $30 million of property value to spread the tax levy across – the net tax rate will probably be close to about $10.02.
The district’s Finance Committee met first to discuss changes to the 2011-12 budget – caused by the finalization of a handful of numbers, including insurance costs and final state aid numbers in a variety of categories – and then vote to recommend approval of the tax levy.
The eight-member committee – the board plus citizen member Tom Preusker – passed the measure on a 7-1. The lone nay vote came from Preusker, who argued against teachers not paying at least a portion of their health insurance premiums as well as increased costs on items such as textbooks.
The School Board then approved both the budget and the tax levy at an action meeting immediately following the Finance Committee meeting.
BASD Business Administrator Peter Smet outlined the process of how the district came up with both its allowable state levy and the amount the district levied. According to Smet, the district could have levied another $1.7 million in taxes because of referendum-approved debt, and did not.
The current levy amount will give the district a surplus of $130,000 this year – which both Smet and board member Larry Anderson say will be needed next year when state aid will likely cut aid by another $2.4 million.
“We’re trying to look at this in multiple years,” Smet said.
The vote ended what has been a long, contentious process, with numerous meetings, plenty of opinions offered on both sides of the argument and one final special meeting as petitioned by district residents Monday night (see separate story).
There, two different items were considered: keeping the tax levy at the 2010-11 amount; and then the higher levy amount proposed by the School Board.
The first failed, while the second passed – both by wide margins.
BASD Superintendent David Moyer tried to look toward the future following Tuesday night’s action meeting.
“My immediate goal for the last month was to survive the month,” Moyer said. Now the district will move into the 2012-13 budget process in about six weeks.
The vote Monday night, Moyer said, does show support for public schools.
“I think the people of Burlington, last night, indicated a high degree of public support for public education,” Moyer said. “I think it’s important for the community to have a statement supporting public education.
“I think public schools are an important part of any community.”
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