Voters in the Trenton R-9 School District will be asked Tuesday to approve the waiver of the district’s Proposition C Tax Rollback, allowing more funds to be received and keeping the R-9 Board of Education from making over $300,000 in cuts that will be needed without the additional funds.
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
Voters in the Trenton R-9 School District will be asked Tuesday to approve the waiver of the district’s Proposition C Tax Rollback, allowing more funds to be received and keeping the R-9 Board of Education from making over $300,000 in cuts that will be needed without the additional funds.
Steve Holt, Wes Hahn and Curtis LaFollette are serving as chairmen of the committee that has been working for the past several weeks to get the measure passed. The committee membership has included patrons representing a whole host of individuals and groups in the community, all of whom believe the funding continue to ensure students in the R-9 District get a quality education.
“We’ve lost a lot of things already,” Hahn said. “And if we don’t do something, we stand to lose a whole lot more that will cost not only the school district, but the community as a whole.”
The Board of Education has already made over $600,000 in cuts, including reductions made in August that resulted in larger class sizes at the elementary school, elimination of programs targeted for at-risk students and a reduction in the district’s workforce, including 11 individuals who lost their jobs right before the start of school. Administrative assistant positions at both the high school and middle school were also eliminated, along with the career ladder, which provided extra funds for those teachers who performed work over and above their normal classroom assignments.
Holt and Hahn agree that those were cuts that hurt, but that the reductions now being considered by the board of education if the Proposition C levy doesn’t pass will have a devastating effect on both students and staff as well as the rest of the community.
“While they haven’t prioritized, the board has come up with a list of cuts which are really going to have an affect if they have to be done,” Holt said. “We don’t want to let it get to that.”
All three men agree the key to getting the issue passed is education and they, along with other members of the committee, have been speaking with groups and individuals about the issue.
“We knew that there were some people out there who didn’t understand the issue and there was also some misinformation out there as well,” Hahn said. “We want people to get the facts so they can make the right decision.”
LaFollette is convinced that the only right decision is to approve the tax rollback waiver.
“To me it comes down to a matter of pride in our community,” he said. “Without a good school system, you don’t have much of a community. Trenton has been good to me and my family. I had three daughters go through the schools here (and) I have three grandchildren there now. It’s important to have a strong school, not only for our kids, but for the community as well.”
In talking with persons in the community, Hahn said those who say they are against to the issue tend to have their opposition focused on one area.
“A lot of the opposition we have run in to seems be against it because they don’t like a teacher, they’ve had a problem with an administrator, they don’t like some action that the board has taken,” Hahn said. “There are ways to address those particular situations. Are they going to get at the person they want to by voting no on this issue? The only ones that are being hurt by that are the kids and the teachers.”
The R-9 School District currently has an operating levy of $2.75 on the $100 valuation, which is the lowest levy the state statute allows a district to set. The rollback waiver that voters will consider on Tuesday will be added to the operating levy total and, based on current levels, would be around a 52-cent increase. To put it in perspective, a person whose assessed valuation is $15,000, the increase in taxes would amount to $78 a year.
The increase is anticipated to generate around $300,000, with another $310,000 expected in state funding, which is determined in part by the amount of a school district’s local contribution (i.e. levy). Superintendent Craig Noah has said in the past that the waiver would allow for the district not to have to make the cuts that have been discussed during the past few months, including the elimination of jobs, classes and extracurricular activities.
“And while we talk about the short-term solution this money would be for us, we also have to think about the long-term effect it would have if it doesn’t,” Hahn said. “If a school district fails to adequately fund itself, other parts of the community will fail as well. We’ll see the tax base erode, people will move and businesses will leave or close up.”
Holt pointed out that the district has a $7.6 million budget, of which 60 percent amounts to teacher and staff salaries.
“And that is money that is being spent here now, but won’t be if we have to make more cuts,” he said.
Holt went on to compare the school district to a business and what a community does to keep or bring in additional jobs that the business would provide.
“Our school district has 147 jobs,” Holt said. “When you talk about a business losing 15 percent of its workforce, most communities would step up and ask, ‘what can we do for you?’ We offer incentives, whatever we can to help keep those jobs here. Well, our school district is faced with losing 15 percent of its workforce. Here’s something (approval of the rollback waiver) that we can do for this business.”
**********
The Trenton R-9 Proposition C Committee has been out in force, meeting with patrons to discuss the Feb. 3 vote on the Prop C Tax Rollback waiver which, if approved, would add approximately 52 cents to the R-9 District’s operating levy and generate around $300,000 in local funds.
Wes Hahn, who serves as co-chairman of the committee, said one of the questions they have been asked frequently is why there isn’t a sunset clause on the waiver. Hahn said that the decision not to ask for the clause is based on the fact that as assessed valuation goes up in the district, the levy total should go down. During the 1983-84 school year, the operating levy for the R-9 District was $3.35. The current levy is now $2.75, reduced due to the increase in the district’s assessment.