PORT ANGELES — Supporters and opponents of the Port Angeles School District maintenance and operations levy measure sparred over the costs of education and taxes Tuesday.
Both spoke to about 40 people at a Port Angeles Business Association meeting about the measure that will be on the Feb. 8 special election ballot.
The co-chairs of the Port Angeles Citizens for Education — former deputy mayor Betsy Wharton and State Farm insurance agent Steve Methner — said that the school district needs the replacement levy revenue to maintain current levels of success.
Shelley Taylor, a tax-limit advocate, said that an economic recession is not the time to raise taxes.
The district’s measure asks voters to approve a four-year property tax levy that would collect $8,178,067 in 2012 and increase slightly over the next four years.
It would replace the current four-year levy that will collect $7,439,312 in 2011, its final year.
The current levy rate is $2.43 per $1,000 assessment — which means the owner of a $200,000 home will pay $486 in property taxes this year.
If passed, the estimated rate would be $2.65 per $1,000 assessment each of the four years.
Although the amount of the levy collected by the district will increase, the amount the rate changes depends on property values, which are expected to rise by a small percentage each year.
At the expected rate, the owner of a $200,000 home would pay about $530 in property taxes for the replacement levy — a difference of about $44 from the present levy.
Methner said he felt the increase was reasonable.
“If you think about it, that is less than a cup of coffee a month” for a year, he said.
“So if you can not have Starbucks one day a month, you could pay that difference of what it takes to educate these children.”
Taylor said that in light of other tax increases, she didn’t think property owners could spare the expense.
“Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey makes a lot of sense when asked about his unpopular cuts to education,” she said.
“‘I don’t want to hurt teachers. But how can I pay people if I don’t have the money? I literally don’t have it,'” Taylor quoted Christie as saying.
“The federal government doesn’t have the money, states don’t, and constituents certainly don’t,” Taylor said.
The increase is necessary because of state cuts to public school district funding, Superintendent Jane Pryne said.
Another source of declining revenues is enrollment, which has been decreasing for more than a decade.
But the district was cutting teachers proportionally to the enrollment, Pryne said.
State budget cuts are far more devastating, the superintendent said.
In the past several year, the district has cut its budget by:
• $455,000 in the 2007-2008 school year.
• $1,369,500 in the 2008-2009 school year.
• $2,563,873 in the 2009-2010 school year.
• $1,970,373 in the 2010-2011 school year.
In December, state legislators voted to cut the school’s budget in the current year by about $1 million.
“In my 34 years in education, I’ve never seen that happen in the middle of the year. They have always given a heads-up,” Pryne said.
“And you can see that in the levy, we are asking for about $730,000 more.
“So you can do the math. We were reduced by $1 million, but we are not asking to make all of that up.”
Taylor advocated a reform of the funding system.
“I don’t know exactly what the laws are, but has anyone thought about funding education through sales taxes?” she said.
She went on to say that her philosophy was that property taxes should increase by a predictable amount instead of shifting levy amounts.
“How can you budget if you don’t know how much it will be?” said Taylor, a founder of Property Owners for Predictable Tax Now, a tax-reform organization formed in November 2005 that shut down in July 2009.
Taylor also urged parents to volunteer in classrooms and students to use free online resources for tutoring rather than depending on costly teacher time.
“As entrepreneurs, you see the wisdom and the fiscal benefits of streamlining: The better it runs, the better the results,” Taylor said.
“And surely there is streamlining to be done. But that will take awhile.
“In the meantime, there is excellent help out there that costs nothing.
“There is online education and tutoring. And it’s free.”
Wharton said that the students who need the most help won’t be able to do those things.
“I am a nurse at First Step, and every day, I work with families who are struggling,” she said.
“These kids are not going to go online and get more resources.
“It is a lot for their parents to get them to school in clean clothes that don’t have holes in them.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily news.com.
