On April 5th, the South Tama School Board will be holding an election concerning South Tama’s revenue purpose statement.

On March 24th I received in the mail, via a bulk mailing a postcard from the STC School District campaigning for yes votes on April 5th.

I try to keep up with what’s happening and I saw the vote coming. I saw it coming last December in the minutes of the school board, when Alan Kline made a motion to renew it, but his motion died for lack of a second. I highly doubt most people saw it coming though. What’s the rush? I get a postcard telling me to vote yes, less than two weeks before the vote. Did I miss the informative meeting? I’m guessing there wasn’t one.

So I was vaguely aware of the vote coming and was pretty content to let it go, until I received the postcard in the mail. The postcard raised more questions than it answered for me and to be honest, just seemed fishy. I began doing my own research, and the answers I found were unnerving and not really coinciding with the “it’s no big deal” message the postcard seemed to be touting.

I think at best the school board needs to do a little better job of educating all of us about what is happening. While doing my own research I couldn’t help but get the feeling we’re being hoodwinked. So, since the school board hasn’t educated me or many others about what’s really happening I will inform them of the conclusions I have come to from my own research. If I am wrong, I would be more than happy to be better educated. In the mean time it only seems fair to share with voters some legitimate questions and issues to take into consideration (Seems ironic that I am accusing the board of education of not educating us on what it wants to do).

From what I can determine, the SILO was replaced by SAVE. School taxes were then deposited into SAVE and allocated back to the schools by the state on a per pupil basis. The original purpose of SAVE is for tax relief within the school district. The legislature outlined what to use the SAVE money on. It is required to be used to pay down debt and relieve tax burden. If a school board wants to use the money for anything it wasn’t intended for, they can offer a Revenue Purpose Statement. This statement must be offered in an election. From what I can determine the original RPS was included in the original vote for the local option tax. The postcard I received made it sound like it’s going to expire soon, but in reality it’s still in effect until at least 2022. So at least five more years. That begs the question : Why now and why the big hurry if it isn’t even going to expire soon?

I found an interesting Question and Answer Article on Iowa’s Department of Education website concerning SAVE and RPS. It’s found at : www.educateiowa.gov/sites/files/ed/documents/SAVE%20%20FAQs%20final.pdf (if you go to www.tamatoledonews.com, it may be easier to go to the link)

From that document it’s pretty clear the intent of SAVE is property tax relief. It talks about how a school doesn’t have to have an RPS, but that means it has to pay it’s debts then relieve taxes with the SAVE instead of building or remodeling with it. It also says an RPS never expires and can only be amended or repealed. So that makes me wonder if we are actually amending the RPS? What did the original say, and what does this new one say? Maybe there is no difference, but I think that would be the school boards responsibility to make it clear well in advance. Why not put that on the postcard? Instead of falsely implying they’ll lose authority or local control if you don’t vote yes.

What does an RPS do? The postcard said it gave the school board the authority to spend sales tax revenues. And that’s a lie. That’s what spurred me on to do my own research. The school board has the authority to spend the revenues already. The postcard also said an RPS is required to maintain local control, implying they lose control without an RPS, which is deceitful at best. What an RPS does is bypass using SAVE for servicing debt and relieving taxes and allows the school board to use it to build and buy stuff with, which is not the original intention for the money. You see, to build a school or addition, the school board would have to issue general bonds to obtain the money to build. In order to issue the bonds they would have to come to the voters for approval. That would maintain some accountability and oversight. That would require them to explain everything they are doing and “sell” it to the voters. In order to bypass that, they issue an RPS that says instead of paying off current bonds and then relieving taxes, they can just use that money for building purposes without asking the voters. What’s more, they can borrow against future revenue. Issuing revenue bonds instead of general bonds. Revenue bonds don’t have to be voted on. They are merely promising future revenue before it is received. That might explain why they want to extend the RPS five years before it even expires. It would be handy to have an indefinite RPS to issue revenue bonds against. Instead of only having 5 years to issue against. Which begs another question: Not only are we not shown the previous RPS or the one they want “extended”, but when will it expire? I don’t know if it will ever expire. So you are in effect taking away any opportunity a tax payer has for accountability away permanently.

The postcard says it’s not a raise in taxes. While technically true, if you haven’t already figured it out, what it is doing is robbing money that is supposed to relieve taxes, therefore taxes aren’t “raised” but they are not relieved either. SAVE was intended to pay down bonds and relieve property taxes to stimulate business growth, and therefore jobs. Not as a tool for bypassing issuing new general bonds that voters would have to approve. It’s like taking a loan for a car. Then you decide you want another car, and instead of asking the banker for another loan, you just stop paying for the car you have and take that money and buy another car from a friend and start paying him monthly instead of the bank. The only difference is, the bank can repossess the first car, but as tax payers we can’t repossess the school.

Imagine if a kid goes to his parents and asks for help paying for college. The parents say okay. Then later the same kid goes to the same parents and ask for help buying a car. The parents say yes so the kid brings them a couple options to choose from. Both are brand new. Option 1 is 15,000 dollars and option two is 23,000 dollars. The parents ask the kid about the cars and find out that the 15,000 dollar car is perfectly acceptable and will meet all the needs the kid has, and the 23000 dollar car is more than the kid needs and is mostly just what would be nice and what the kid wants. Obviously the parents are going to help the kid with the 15,000 dollar car. And tell him to wait on the frills.

That’s what the school board faces. They could come to the voters and say hey, we need to replace the portables. Five million will do it. Then all of a sudden it turns to almost 8 million! That’s obviously a lot harder sell to a county of farmers, senior citizens, struggling families and small business owners. Why not be happy with a 5 million dollar solution instead of going all out with 8 million? But if you don’t have to go to the people footing the bill, why not charge 8 million to them, instead of just 5 million?

Now imagine that kid and his car. How would it be if that kid took his tuition check and bought the 23,000 car with it instead of paying his tuition? I don’t think his parents would be too thrilled. In fact they would be outraged. The kid was supposed to pay his tuition, not buy the fancy car. Well I as a taxpayer am not overly thrilled with giving the school a multi-million dollar elementary, then them taking the “tuition” check that is supposed to go towards paying that bond and getting it off the tax rolls and instead using it to build what they want. They’re buying what they want instead of selling to the taxpayers what they need, and getting it approved by majority vote. The school board thinks the voters won’t approve an 8 million dollar bond, so they are sneaking it by behind their parents backs, and that disingenuous. They might have to work at educating the public about the need for a 5 million dollar remodel, but I’ve seen STC school boards in the past work within budget and convince voters to pass the bonds.

I’m no expert but I’m ready to be educated on the matter and I deserve to be, as do all the other tax payers in the STC CSD. Maybe I’m completely off base, maybe I’ve hit the nail square on the head. This vote came up so fast no one knows what’s happening. The speed at which the vote came up is fishy in itself. I’m voting no, because that just means it will come up for vote in another 6 months (October). ( Remember it won’t expire til 2022 at the earliest) That’ll be 6 months for the school board to properly educate us and take concerns. I think the voters deserve that. So my ‘no’ vote really means -“convince me”, I need more than a disingenuous post card. Right now, it looks like the two options are: Vote no and it’s used for tax relief, and the school board will have to ask for voter approval to borrow a ton of money, or vote yes and it’s a blank check given to the school board to use for whatever they feel like with no accountability.

This compares to 2015-16 which listed expenditures totaling $20,341,778. with a tax levy rate of $16.14 per $1,000 property valuation. The 10 cents per $1,000 increase is 6/10s of one percent.

The Facilities Aquicition and Construction category shows hte biggrest increase over the current year a jump of about $1.7 million reflecting the planned expense of the addition to the high school.

But that amount may drop a bit more. The Iowa Legislature has announced a compromise has been reached for scool funding. It will raise revenue direted to schools 2.25 percent or a total of $88 million state-wide according to a news release from he Iowa Association of School Boards.

Mary Boege, South Tama business manager, told The Chronicle, “If the Governor signs the bill it will decrease our tax rate from what we are publishing. We are publishing at the worse case scenario. If we get the 2.25 our tax rate will decrease to $16.19 from the $16.24 (per $1,000 valuation).”

Also as a result, Superintendent Mary Jones wrote in repsonse to a Chronicle question, “I appreciate receiving this decision much earlier this year. It helps our Board make smart decisions in compensation and allows STCCS the ability to hire early and the best teacher candidates.”

The school board approved publishing the estimated budget at the March 21 regular meeting.

Also before the South Tama School Board:

a meeting was scheduled with a consultant on the Iowa Juvenile Home building. The consultant did not show up so there was no discussion.

The Toledo City Council had also expected ot meet with a consultant the previous Monday night but no one appeared.

contracts approved were for Deanna Zmolek for head girls golf coach with Chelsea Ahrens, effective April, 2016. each receiving $1,471 pay; and Mariah Fritz as 9th grade softball coach, effective April, 2016, at a salary of $2914.

resignations were accepted from a Marsha Keahna as varsity girls basketball coach; and Doran as assistant varsity football coach

internaltransfers include Nathan Doran from assistant varsity football coach to head football coach; Ashley Steven from 7th grade math teacher to 8th grade math; and Megan Rosenberger from 2nd grade teacher to Title 1.

The total of the bills presented for payment and approved from February 12 – March 21 came to $510,529. This consisted of General Fund $368,097, Activity Fund $27,169, Management Fund $1,667, Capital Projects $44,941, PPEL $25,478, Agency Funds $533 and Food Service $42,645.