Presto! Change-o! Add 4 more cents to the mill rate!

How does this happen? What changed?
On Monday 9/14/09, the school board voted on agenda item to "approve"--actual approve forwarding the budget to the community to vote on at the annual meeting.

6.03 Adoption of 2009-10 Proposed Budget
Meeting: 09/14/2009 REGULAR SCHOOL BOARD MEETING (Revised), 7:30 p.m.

The Situation report listed 11 "budget operating assumptions", number 10 of which was,

10. A projected mill rate of $11.81. This includes the 2nd installment of new debt for the 8/9 school and the high school project.

Then...when we get to the "Annual Report"...which has been provided to Board and Committee members but not the general public (?????). And it says (page 24):

"The tax mill rate is projected at $11.85 per $1,000 of property value, an increase of 12.56%."

The annual meeting booklets are very nice....printed with a high gloss color cover. This is a big change over the typical thick colored paper stock covers. These were received this past Thursday.

So...what changed between 9/14/09 and the day the annual meeting booklets were printed that caused the mill rate to increase $0.04? Sure...$0.04 doesn't seem like a lot. But since every $1,000,000 of tax levy costs the tax payers $0.26 in terms of mill rate....that still means a net increase in expenditures of about $156,000. What did we buy? Hmmm?

And surely we knew this at the time and could have told the school board in the 9/14/09 data that the mill rate would be $11.85, not $11.81????

Or does anyone on the school board have a clue? They can't remember how they vote! They can't remember if they knew about class fees! These folks are ready for Washington!

We're just sayin'...