Time to Brace Ourselves?

Last week, the Burlington School District held their annual elector's meeting.   The district was proposing a 3.69% tax levy increase.  That levy was soundly rejected by the electors on a 153-115 vote.  Is Sun prairie next in line?  The 2011-12 budget has not even passed approval by the school boar'd Finance Committee, let alone gone to the school board for final adoption.  All signs point to the board being stuck on a 3.5% levy increase, while all over the state the majority of districts are lowering their levies.  In the interest of full disclosure (a concept alien to the SPASD top administrators) there ARE some districts out there that have gone forward with tax levy increases, some significant.

Note that SPASD will likely point to the Racine Unified School District's tax levy increase of 6.32% to make their 3.5% proposed increase look miniscule.  What they'll fail to mention, however, is that as a "unified" school district (vs. a "common" school district like Sun Prairie) is not subject to a public vote on the tax levy.

What Burlington electors got wrong
In a repeat of DeForest electors' error last year, the Burlington electors appear to have voted to reject the levy proposed by the district but did NOT vote to approve a different levy.  That is the ultimate power of the electors, but, like DeForest, they failed to use it.  That leaves the decision on the amount of tax to levy up to the school board itself.  You're not gonna love the way this one looks.

Those at the meeting voted 153 to 115 against the increase, Peter Smet, Burlington's business manager, said Tuesday. The number of people at the meeting was much, much higher than normal because the tax increase was mentioned Monday on a radio program, Smet said. "Last year there were only 35 people there," he said. "The last 10 years we've averaged about 35 people." The property tax increase would have allowed the district to collect about $725,000 more in property taxes by raising the tax rate about 3.6 percent from $9.76 per $1,000 of property value to $10.11, Smet said. 

Read about the tax levy revolt in Burlington