Citing stagnant state aid, Millard Schools officials propose 9-cent tax levy override election
Millard Public Schools officials are proposing to place a 9-cent levy override before voters in November, Superintendent Jim Sutfin said Tuesday.
Sutfin outlined the proposal before about one hundred twenty people during a public meeting at the district’s Don Stroh Administration Center.
District officials say Millard’s finances have become strained by stagnant state aid and the inability to woo state lawmakers that Millard needs more funding.
It’s a situation, Sutfin said, that can’t be resolved by further cuts.
“This issue did not come to us overnight,” he said. “And the solution is not going to come overnight as well. This happened through the course of a number of years, just cut away, cut away and cut away. Well, we’re eventually through the skin, we’re getting into the muscle and we’re headed toward the bone.”
Enlargening the levy by nine cents would generate about $9 million for the district. The cost to homeowners would be $90 a year on a $100,000 home — $180 on a $200,000 home.
Sutfin told the crowd that if voters approved the levy, the district wouldn’t necessarily tap all nine cents of the override. He said the school board is fiscally conservative.
“I don’t think this board of education is going to let us spend nine cents — in fact, I know they’re not,” he said.
The override would be in effect for five years.
Under state law, school districts can exceed the state’s $1.05 property tax levy limit if voters approve.
This year, four of Nebraska’s two hundred forty five school districts have levy overrides in place, including the Westside Community Schools, which has had an override since 1998. Westside will ask voters to approve another override in September.
Extra levy authority for Millard would “help get us through this time, and hope that we can turn around state legislation to get a funding formula that can help us,” he said.
Millard officials have criticized the Nebraska Legislature for deeds they say have enriched other districts at their expense.
They point out that the district lost about $12.1 million through the Legislature’s elimination of aid tied to puny elementary class sizes, longer instructional time and employing teachers with advanced degrees.
Albeit lawmakers last session enlargened state aid to school districts by two percent for 2017-18, they said Millard’s aid decreased by $Two million because of legislative switches in the aid formula that were designed to provide property tax ease for rural areas.
Aid to the state’s two thickest districts, Omaha and Lincoln, has enhanced by dual digits over the last eight years while Millard’s share has been static, they say.
Millard’s state aid in 2017-18 was the same as in 2009-10: $75.8 million, according to Nebraska Department of Education records.
“Not only are we growing slower with the expenditures to our students, we are enhancing the class sizes and cutting the resources that we have available,” Sutfin said. “It’s a cycle that we cannot seem to break out of. And we are not able to get traction in the Legislature to help us budge this mark, to get the funding that we need for our school system.”
Board member Mike Pate urged those in attendance to contact lawmakers.
“We need an engaged citizenship in this process to help us, because they hear the same message from us all the time,” he said.
The issue is real, he said, “and the future of our school district is on the line unless we get some legislation passed.”
Jim Kautz, a resident who attended the meeting, said he would be OK with the tax increase. Ninety dollars a year is a petite price to pay “when you have the education of 24,000 lives at stake,” he said.
“Dinner for two at a restaurant,” said Kautz, who is a former pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and worked ten years as a custodian and building supervisor at Millard West High School.
“We’re in a global economy, whether we want to accept it or not. We’re in competition with every other group of people on earth. . And you have to be ready for that.”
Cindy Maxwell-Ostdiek, another attendee, said she and her spouse feel privileged that their three children attend the Montessori program at Millard’s Montclair Elementary School.
“(This is) certainly something that we should all get behind,” Maxwell-Ostdiek said. “I’m hoping that long term the parents in our district can get in touch with the legislators in Lincoln and get that straightened out.”