Last year, the School Board of ISD 15 made the tough decision of passing a levy under a new process created by legislators in St. Paul called the Board approved levy. As an appointed board member, I struggled with this decision because I disagreed with the vote being taken away from the tax payers. In the end, I brought it to the voters via this Facebook page. Over 3000 people viewed the post, and a few hundred of took the time to share their opinion. While I received perspectives both for and against, I made my vote in favor of the levy. Many have asked what we have since done with those funds. The primary focuses were to restore the Districts general fund balance to the District policy of 5%, and to restore programming. We have come close to our goal on the fund balance. It is important to note that this was also a contract negotiation year, and we had to realize that we could not accomplish everything in one year. We have made great strides in programming. We were able to reinstate elementary art in all three of our schools. We also added activity bus routes to support the extra curricular activities we currently have, and help to allow more students access to our programming. Tomorrow we will act to rescind the current referendum and approve a new referendum. This action allows for much confusion, and that is the reason for this post. The reason for this action, is that in this past legislative session, changes were made to how the location equity was decided. In the end, the language resulted in a loss of about $75,000 to our district, if we dont act to approve the appropriate and current referendum language. PLEASE NOTE: THIS ACTION DOES NOT INCREASE THE LEVY AMOUNT. IT STAYS THE SAME AS WAS APPROVED LAST YEAR, BY THE ISD 15 SCHOOL BOARD. This action will not create new taxes. If you have questions, please feel free to email me. I apologize for bringing you this info so late on the eve of a vote, but I do feel this is an action that all ISD 15 residents need to understand. [email protected]
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 00:54:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015