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Well said
As a school supporter, I appreciate your posts. You provide good food for thought. I hope the Board and other PLSD admin folks read these posts and take them seriously.
However, a point of clarification.
You state the following in part 2 of your post:
''As the local real estate increases in value then the school sees increase in revenues as well.''
State law does NOT allow revenue to rise with roof tops when it comes to these school levies. The District has continued to collect the same $2.9 million each year from the existing 5-mill levy approved in 1993 ... REGARDLESS of the # of homes built.
So to imply that ALL revenue increases as population expands is not accurate.
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Full disclosure
Here is what I said:
''So the point is that a rather large portion of the school?’s budget does increase each year despite not passing every operating levies. Saying that the levy has not increases since 1991 is very deceitful.''
I did not infer that all of the Schools revenues increased every year. You are comparing apples and oranges in the revenue stream. Clearly the state's portion of revenues increases every year, also the income tax increases every years unless we had a depression, and there is a component in the property taxes (4.5 MIlls of inside millage) that increases every year. What is left is small grants and the outside operating levies. One of which just failed.
What I was implying is that the school tried to sell the idea that their revenues were either flat or not increasing in a dollar amount from year to year. That is not true. I think the real estate revenues from outside millage is less than 25% of the total revenue stream for the school. Working during the day I can't simply run down to the board office and pick that information up. If it was on the school web site we could understand the schools financial problems better instead of the current sales job we get.
My wife asked me numerous times about what was being reported in the paper concerning this OUTSIDE millage levy. The fact is, that left to reporters it is going to be very hard to explain and understand fully. I think many of us are very suspicious of the figures coming out of the district. A full disclosure may well ease some of those fears.
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More numbers to chew
Here is what so hard to understand and I suspect many in the school community don't understand it either and I believe there was a sales pitch going on that said that the 5 mill levy that was up for renewal was originally passed in 1993. As I looked at the Auditors web site I see the first year of collection for that levy (outside millage) was 1994. OK so that fits. Then the voted millage is 5 mills but the effective millage is at 2.91 mills. If this levy had not been before the voters since 1993 then the effective millage would be less than 1 mill. If you compare the Pickerington Police levy it was passed/renewed in 2001. It was originally 5.5 mills. Its current effective rate is around 3.9. That is just in 6 years.
So each year the school can expect increases in revenues from a number of sources.
1. The state portion of the operating budget (50% Plus) normally increases. Since the district is a growing district they can expect regular increases
2. Then there is the inside millage 4.5 mills that increase with the property valuation of the district. The district property valuation is currently slightly over $1 billion. that would be around $4.5 Million school operating revenues increasing.
3. The school income tax increase normally each year do to new residents moving into the district and salaries going up.
So out of a $70 Million current operating budget $47.9 Million of that budget will likely increase next year without any action by the voters. That works out to around $22.314 Million on the operating budget that stays the same dollar amount unless the voters approve a levy renewal.
In addition to the operating budget the district taxpayers shell out $13.5 Million each year for debt service. So in debt service and operating levies the local taxpayers shell around $48.5 million each year for the schools.
Now my figures are guessimates but it would be more informative if there was official figures posted giving actual numbers.
I know the cost per pupil numbers have increased each year for the last few. I always hear the economic of scale argument yet that theory doesn't seem to work here locally at our schools.
The second factor that seems to always bite the school board is what is being spent at the different schools. If the two high schools are actually separate but equal then the board should have no problems posting the operating expenses for Central and for North. Obviously we would need to factor in the number of students at each school. Which seems odd at this point because North is near capacity.
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North is near capacity?
The last poster said this. Is north really near capacity?
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