We think you all are sufficiently informed that you do not need to hear the district core values, or mission statement. You don't need to hear the sleep-inducing process of developing a budget. And certainly, if you want to have your head spun, just could sit at home and watch the latest campaign ads on the tube.
We figure that (A) you're smarter than that, and (B) if you have a question, you'll ask it.
In a perfect world, the school district would have a page on their website that offered the current, up-to-the minute details on key financial information that you need to know when making a decision regarding the levy Monday night. But that's not going to happen. So we offer THIS...our best estimate of the numbers you need to know.
Why did the mill rate increase if the tax levy dropped?
Funny story! Glad you asked. You remember how a couple of citizens, namely Roger Fetterly and Rick Mealy have been trying to get the board to understand that their pie-in-the-sky hopes that property values INCREASED this past year (yeah...right) are just out to lunch? Well, reluctantly, the board/district dropped their estimate of equalized values from a projected INCREASE of 1% to flat or 0% back in July (we're not gonna say we told you so :). Then these same citizens told them that 0% wasn't enough. How is it that two citizens seemed to be aware of information on equalized values released by the Department of Revenue in early August, but the school district seemed oblivious. These data indicated a significant DROP in property values (-5.5% in the city of Sun Prairie alone!). The district also seemed to ignore newspaper articles that announced that equalized values for Dane County dropped over 3%. (It's nice to see that although we pay for TWO newspaper subscriptions for the district office, no one seems to read them). Yet still they used their "0%" number.
And THEN the Annual Meeting booklet became available about a week ago and--lo and behold--suddenly the district was using -3% as their equalized value projection (we don't even think the school board was aware of this change!) and a mill rate of $12.00. Wait! It gets better (or is it worse?) Just this past week, school board members--not the public, mind you" were alerted to the fact that on Monday night, the NEW number you will see is -4.66% for equalized value.
A 4.66% drop in equalized value translates to a 4.66% INCREASE in the mill rate without any change to the tax levy!
So...you'll have to sit through 45 minutes of yada.. yada.. yada.. just to get the information above.
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