Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:08 PM CST
School board delays tax levy
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — The chance for more revenue for the coming year meant the Charleston school board decided to postpone adopting the district’s annual tax levy for one month.
District financial consultant David Kuetemeyer told the board at its meeting Wednesday that he learned this week that new construction would add more to the district’s property values than first thought. The $3 million increase in property values should translate to about $120,000 more in property tax revenue next year than was expected, he explained.
However, Kuetemeyer also said the change means the levy would increase revenue enough to require the district to have a public hearing before adopting it. The board voted to have the hearing immediately before its Dec. 17 meeting then approve the levy during that meeting, instead of this month as first planned.
Kuetemeyer said the district had to include the new property values in this year’s levy before it becomes part of the tax base and is then subject to tax cap limits.
“To make sure we can access that new construction, we have to levy against that now,” he said. “It would not be in our children’s best interests not to do it.”
The Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, sometimes called tax caps, limits the increase in property tax revenue to 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. However, property values that increase because of improvements or new construction aren’t included in the limits.
Kuetemeyer said the new levy could bring in as much as 6.24 percent in property taxes than what the district received this year. A public hearing is required if the increase is 5 percent or more.
Also Wednesday, Bill Monken, who manages the district’s energy conservation program, reported that the program has saved just more than $1 million in energy costs since it started about five years ago.
Monken said he encourages teachers and other employees to turn off lights and computers when they’re not being used, and he monitors heating and cooling systems to make sure they’re running properly.
As an example of how he said the program’s working, Monken said he compared the electricity use recorded at one meter at Charleston High School for March to August 2003, when the program first started, and the same months this year. The number of kilowatt hours went down about 35 percent and the cost went from about $58,000 to $54,000, though the cost per unit of electricity more than doubled, he said.
“We’re using less energy now than we were using,” Monken told the board.
Also, Superintendent Jim Littleford reported to the board on the schedule to hire a new principal and assistant principal for Charleston Middle School, which is using interim administrators this year.
The deadline for applications for the principal’s position will be Jan. 5 and the board should be able to hire someone at its Jan. 14 meeting, Littleford said. The new principal can then take part in picking the assistant principal, and that hiring should take place at the board’s Feb. 18 meeting, he said.
The board also voted to add another class section of early childhood special education at Ashmore Elementary School, which Littleford said has space available for the additional section. In another vote, the board renewed its workers compensation insurance with Indiana Insurance Co. at an increased cost of about $22,000 over last year.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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