More than 200 volunteers, including school district employees, parents and community members, spent the last few weekends knocking on doors, asking voters to support an 85-cent tax levy increase for the Northwest R-1 School District.
If approved, the April 7 ballot issue (Proposition Pride), would be used to address shortfalls in revenue, improve technology, raise teachers’ salaries and rebuild reserves.
A simple majority vote is required for approval.
Sherri Talbott, chairwoman of the Proposition Lions Campaign Committee, has helped with the canvassing.
“We are trying to get the word out that we are running a tax levy and it’s gotten to the place where we can’t keep running our schools and programs without more money,” Talbott said.
The measure would bring in approximately $4.6 million annually in additional revenue, with 20 cents of the increase, about $1.1 million annually, dedicated to the purchase and support of technology, officials said.
The increase would add 85 cents per $100 assessed valuation to a homeowner’s annual real estate property tax bill. A taxpayer with a home valued at $100,000 would pay an extra $161.50 (added on to that taxpayer’s current $875.98). Currently, the district’s overall levy is $4.6104 per $100 of assessed valuation, which includes an operating levy of $3.8609, a capital projects levy of $.15 and debt service levy of $.5995.
R-1 Superintendent Paul Ziegler said in the first year of collection, in addition to the money set aside for technology, the extra money would address problems caused by funding shortages: $1 million would go to eliminate the deficit, $500,000 would replace money cut from capital projects, and $2 million would be used to restore other cuts and address salary deficiencies.
Technology
Ninety-four percent of residents who took a survey agreed that access to technology is necessary for students to stay competitive, Ziegler said.
Improvements funded by the district’s 2014 bond issue included a wireless access point in every classroom districtwide, he said.
The district is considering the 1:1 program, in which every student receives a school-supplied device to have access to the Internet, course materials and textbooks, Ziegler said.
“We have a committee looking at 1:1,” he said, evaluating how the program is working in other districts and whether it might be a good idea for Northwest.
Ziegler said if the program were adopted, it would probably be for high school students.
Teachers’ salaries
Starting salaries for teachers in the Northwest School District are near the bottom in Jefferson County with only the Grandview and Sunrise districts paying lower salaries, Ziegler said.
“But compared to the districts in the St. Louis area that we should be compared to, we are at the very bottom,” he said.
To make ends meet, district teachers have had no raises in the last two years, receiving only a one-time stipend, Ziegler said. In addition, about 120 positions have been eliminated districtwide over the past few years through attrition, he said.
Talbott, a retired district teacher and a former R-1 board member, said time is running out.
“We haven’t had to lay anybody off because we’ve had enough retirements, but we are falling further and further behind,” she said. “We’ve begun to see some flight where teachers leave because they can make more money elsewhere, anywhere.”
Funding shortfalls
Northwest officials say the increase is necessary because revenue continues to decrease. Since the 2009 school year, the district’s revenue has decreased by 7 percent. Deficit spending over the last three years have reduced reserves from 24.2 percent of the district’s budget in 2011-2012 to 16.4 percent in the current school year. The R-1 district’s current budget is $65,064,879.
Ziegler said there are several reasons behind the decrease in revenue:
■ State funding shortfalls: Since the 2009-2010 school year, the district has lost $8.2 million cumulatively because a percentage of the state’s education funding formula has been withheld each year.
■ Cuts in state funding for transportation: The district, which encompasses 124 square miles, is the largest geographically in Jefferson County. The state has cut transportation funding in half and the district’s size means that loss is especially difficult. R-1’s transportation cost was $4,356,935 in the 2013-2014 school year. The state funded $984,476 of that (about 23 percent). Buses consume about 250,000 gallons of fuel each year, Ziegler said.
■ Flat assessed value in the district: The assessed valuation of property in the district has remained essentially the same for the last four years, meaning the district has not seen a rise in funding from property values.
■ Hold Harmless designation: When the current state funding formula for education was implemented, Northwest R-1 was designated a “hold harmless” district. The designation was intended originally to help the district, but it is now harmful because it freezes funding at former levels.
Opposition
A loosely organized group is opposing the tax levy increase.
One of the opponents, Neil Whited of High Ridge, said the increase is too high.
“The proposed operating levy increase is a massive 22 percent and affects both personal property and real estate taxes,” he said.
Whited said there were other alternatives the district could take.
“To address any shortfalls from the state, they could have raised the current levy 3.5 percent, which was already approved, played football on real grass and made some or all of the $3.5 million in cuts recommended by the Fiscal Responsibility Committee,” Whited said. “They also could have proposed a modest increase of, say 5 percent.”
Sandra Young, who purchased advertising opposing the proposal, said she believes in giving children a quality education, but the tax increase is not necessary.
“A good education is everything,” she said. “My two children went through the Northwest School District and both have achieved way beyond my expectations.”
“I am a homeowner, and they want to raise my taxes a fourth more,” Young said. “They should have tightened their budget instead of building the football field.”