Tax levy to increase 2.5 percent from last year
By Kellen Olshefski
Editor
The Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education voted in favor of adopting its annual budget for the 2014-2015 year at its Monday night meeting.
A tax levy of $19,114,649 means taxpayers in the Elkhorn Area School District will see an increase of about 3.8 percent on the school’s portion of the tax bill. The tax rate has been set at $10.92 per $1,000 of assessed value, compared to last year’s $10.52. This means taxpayers will pay $1,092 for every $100,000 of property value.
Before approving the budget, Elkhorn Area School District Business Manage William Trewyn highlighted a few items of the budget for the School Board.
Having had to wait for student enrollment numbers, value of property in the school district and what state aids the district will be receiving, Trewyn’s proposed estimated budget was only about $16,000 off.
Trewyn said having originally estimated no increase in student enrollment and being under “a hold harmless provision,” because the average was actually going in a downward direction. With an increase of students this year, Trewyn said it actually reduces that component, changing the revenue cap. However, he said this will be good for future revenue caps as it increases the district’s average.
Trewyn said looking at the adjustment of the tax levy over a two-year period, it’s just lower than 2 percent. The reason being, according to Trewyn, is that the levy actually went down about .6 percent last year when the district received additional aid.
As the state looks at a two-year budget cycle, Trewyn said he thinks it’s important to look at the school’s levy over a two-year period.
“When you look at that range, the increase is just under 2 percent, 1.91 percent,” he said.
According to Trewyn, equalization aid was decreased for the district this year by about $195, 128. According to the budget, the school district pulled in about $14.3 million in state aid.
With regards to debt service, the district refinanced part of its long-term debt, saving $105,000 over the remaining amortization schedule. Combined with the last two school years refinancing, this represents more than $1,156,000 in interest and debt service tax levy savings, according to the budget.
In his budget, Trewyn included information on how valuation has changed between the different municipalities in the district and its effect on the levy distribution. Trewyn said although the School Board approves the levy, the distribution is based on the equalized value of all the municipalities in the school district.
According to Trewyn, overall, property values throughout the district dropped by about 1.22 percent. However, looking at the different municipalities individually, there’s a fairly large amount of variance between the changes. Change in property values ranged from a drop of 7.59 percent in the Town of La Grange to an increase of 4.07 percent in the City of Elkhorn.
As a result, the towns of La Fayette, Spring Prairie, Sugar Creek and Troy saw an increase in the amount of the levy distributed of about 4.42 percent. The Town of La Grange saw a decrease in its portion of the levy of 4.09 percent while the City of Elkhorn saw an increase of 8.01 percent.
The towns of Delavan and Geneva saw a minimal increase, around a half of one percent.
The School Board voted unanimously in favor of adopting the 2014-2015 budget and additionally voted unanimously in favor of certifying the tax levy for the budget.
