It’s In Your Hands Stillwater: School Board Passes Levy and Bond Questions for Fall Ballot
An overview of the levy and bond requests and how it will impact the voters, the school district and the students.
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After a long year of research, the Stillwater Area School Board make the decision Thursday to ask voters for a operating levy, capital project levy and a bond request this November.
So what does this exactly mean for Stillwater voters, the school district and future students?
Here is a break down on the tax impact of the proposed levies and bond request:
- Operating Levy: this will increase the operating amount per student by $500 for seven years for a total of $1,465 per student for seven years. The tax impact on a $100,000 home is $67.90 per a year or $5.66 a month.
- To support a Capital Projects Levy, costing $982,300 for seven years. This levy will expand student access to technology. The tax impact on a $100,000 home is $12.22 per year or $1.02 a month.
- To support an $18.1 million bond to pay for updating and adding science labs, STEM labs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and HVAC systems. This bond will be paid back over 10 years. The tax impact on a $100,000 home is $17.33 per year per $1.44 a month.
It was a sober vote as all the school board members unanimously supported all the three proposed levy and bond questions.
“This is a year’s worth of work, we take this very seriously and we know this will be a burden for some folks out there but we are feel that we are falling behind. The Stillwater in the nineties is not the Stillwater today,” School Board Chairperson George Dierberger said.
If all the levy and bond requests pass this fall, the school district will still have to cut $5 million from their budget this year, a total of $14.7 million will be cut over the next four years and enact a hiring freeze in the district.
If the requests do not pass the school district will be forced to cut $10 million from their budget next year, a total of $30 million dollars over the next four years.
So what will Stillwater residents get for their money?
- The Operating Levy will assist in carrying on the progress made since 2007 in all academic areas and enhance 21st century learning opportunities for the students to prepare them for a global society by offering real world science, arts and world language classes.
- The Capital Project Levy is only used for technology. This levy will pay to replace 3,400 district owned devices, decrease the student to computer ratios, add classroom technologies, provide technology training for teachers and staff and ensure equity between schools.
- The bond will pay for adding five science labs and two STEM labs at the high school and expand the existing four science labs at Oak-Land Junior High, as well as renovating existing space into one STEM lab at the junior high level. The school district plans on updating the HVAC systems at six schools in the district (Afton-Lakeland, Lake Elmo, Lily Lake, Oak Park, Oak-Land Junior High and Stillwater Junior High).
All these requests will help the vision 2014 goal be achieved.
School board member Kathy Buchholz has been speaking with voters over the last few weeks and believes the community “wants a strong public school system.”
“In an ideal world the state legislature would fund all this but it’s clear that is not happening. I hate that we need to go out to ask these questions in this economy but we have no choice,” school board member Natasha Fleischman said.
Election Day is Tuesday Nov. 8, 2011. You must register before you can vote. In Minnesota, you may register 20 days before Election Day or on Election Day at your polling place. To get more information and voting registration forms, visit the Minnesota Secretary of State website.
Diane
1:31 pm on Friday, August 12, 2011
"Operating Levy: this will increase the operating amount per student by $500 for seven years for a total of $1,465 per student for seven years."
Isn't this too much to ask for in this economic environment? Please be a little more realistic or I cannot support this referendum.
Randy Marsh
3:45 pm on Friday, August 12, 2011
So let me get this straight. These allegedly educated board members apparently didn't pay attention to the last election when the voters in this district overwhelmingly elected conservatives (and in some cases, conservatives wholy ill-equipped for public service) and nine months later seem to think the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that they are willing to increase the operating levy by $500 per student per year, AND $18 million in bonding so they build some science labs for a school that's 15 years old and the ability to keep everyone cool when it gets hot for three weeks in the spring, AND money to outfit students with technology that they probably already own. Yes, good luck with that. You'd better hope for an early November blizzard or else I have a good idea how this is going to turn out. Wow, with all those fancy power point presentations, I almost forgot how much more we're paying for the fancy new ECFC facility. This district's greedy thirst for spending other peoples' money is unquenchable.
Edward
4:08 pm on Saturday, August 13, 2011
"This district's greedy thirst for spending other peoples' money is unquenchable."
Give them a chance to present the case for an increased levy to the community, giving us a choice between cutting $10 million or mitigating the problems with the levy.
We need to have this discussion as a community, and this gives us that opportunity, and a choice about how to address the problem of state defunding.
Edward
12:02 pm on Saturday, August 13, 2011
We need some specifics about what will happen if we have to cut $10 million from the budget every year. How many teachers cut? How will average class size rise? 3-5 students per class? More or less?
Which programs will be cut? Will we cut band from elementary school? Art classes? Raise (again) fees on extracurricular activities? Eliminate the activities buses? Make residents pay for bussing within a 2 mile radius, as was implemented before? What educational opportunities will our students miss due to lack of science labs? How will they be hobbled vs. the competition in getting into colleges or elite science programs?
I'm wondering how our students will compete in the future against the labor forces coming out of the no-expense-spared systems in India and China and Norway. I think it's harder than ever to get a good job, and our young people need all the advantages we can give them, but we need answers from our school board about what this money will bring to our kids, and what they'll have to take away if we are underfunded.
Can the school district answer some of these questions for us?
Thanks.
John Sievert
4:12 pm on Saturday, August 13, 2011
These are fair questions for the board. What it's important to know, and you are going to see in other non-school levies, is that when the legislature cut so hard at the state level and "balanced" the budget, many of those costs are being pushed down locally. Because the legislature and governor took so long to come to agreement, schools,counties and cities are scrambling to make it up and had little warning.. It's the same thing we've seen happen for the past almost decade and why property taxes in MN have gone up something like 283% over that period. That all said, the roads still need to get fixed and the kids need to have decent schools.
Now, let's look at what happens if this levy won't pass. Even with this increase, there is significant cutting that will have to happen - about $4-5M but it comes on top of years of cutting. We risk damaging almost a generation's worth of kids education in Stillwater if we don't pay attention.
Finally,property values are falling and it's a buyer's market. Fail to pass a levy and you (1) make your house much harder to sell since buyers have many other choices other than ISD834 and (2) you will see your housing values fall faster and farther than they have already compared to other similar communities that have taken care of their schools (i.e. Mahtomedi, etc..).
Edward
4:31 pm on Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thanks, John. State decided to implement a "cuts only" budget vs. a balanced solution (including more taxes on the wealthy or other revenue options). It means we have to be our own lookouts at the local level as state is pulling the rug out from under us.
I'm glad we're having the discussion about school funding at the local level. I think school board is acting responsibly by putting alternative options on the table.
I'm looking forward to seeing more info about the levy as the process moves ahead.
Shawn Hogendorf
9:10 pm on Saturday, August 13, 2011
This is a good conversation. We will follow the school budget (levy/bond included) throughout the process. This is just the beginning, so there is much more to come, and we will work to get answers to some, or all, of the questions posed.
Pangaea
8:48 pm on Wednesday, October 12, 2011
It all comes down to property values. Any realtor will tell you the first question asked when someone is looking for a home is “how are the schools”. Good schools mean good property values. Let’s pass this before our schools decline and cause our property values to continue their downward spiral. A house in the Stillwater school district should be a premium but if we don’t fund our schools like other communities the premium will disappear.