PORT ANGELES — A tax revenue increase of about $700,000 by the Port Angeles School District anticipates deep state cutbacks, school officials told a Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce audience Monday.
Superintendent Jane Pryne, discussing the school district levy measure on the Feb. 8 ballot distributed next week, said the increase wouldn’t replace what was cut by the state Legislature last month.
The Legislature voted in special session to cut funding to schools by the same amount that was given to school districts by a federal program — which means $827,000 for Port Angeles.
The actions were the start of cutbacks to fill a state budget gap of about $5 billion.
“They also said, ‘We realize that in kindergarten to fourth grade we want smaller classes, and we think it is important — but we only think it is important until Feb. 1, so we’re taking that away,'” she told the chamber at its weekly membership meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant on Monday.
The district’s current property tax levy rate is $2.43 per $1,000 of assessed valuation — which means the owner of a $200,000 home will pay $486 to the district this year.
If passed in the Feb. 8 all-mail election, the estimated tax rate would be $2.65 per $1,000 during each of four years.
Although the amount of the revenues collected by the district will increase, the rate changes according to property assessments, which are expected to rise by a small percentage each year.
The levy measure, which asks for $8.2 million in the first year, would succeed the four-year levy that expires this coming December, which raises about $7.5 million.
Pryne said 55 percent of the current levy goes to what she called “basic education.”
“That includes teachers and pencils and support staff and desks,” she said.
“When we first did the resolution for the ballot title, we had basic education as one of the things it was going toward, but we were told that the law said you can’t say that it is going toward basic education,” she said.
“But the reality is that 55 percent of it now goes for basic education.”
She said a host of other programs underfunded by the Legislature are the reason levies are necessary at all.
As an example, she cited the special education.
The state covers up to 12 percent of the district’s student population in special education.
Currently, 14.5 percent of the student population is in the program, Pryne said.
“Even the 12 percent, isn’t necessarily fully funded,” she said.
Some students in the program cost more than $60,000 per year to provide speech therapists, physical therapists, nurses and other services necessary for them to learn, she said.
The board cut $1,970,373 from the draft budget in August because the state had slashed funding programs and because of declining enrollment.
Public schools are reimbursed money from the state for enrollment.
Steve Methner, a State Farm Insurance broker, husband of a School Board member and co-chair of the pro-levy Port Angeles Citizens for Education, said the school district is being slowly drained because of budget cuts.
“You can’t just say about a recipe that if you can’t afford baking soda that you can leave that out and expect the same result,” he said. “Eventually you will starve the system.
“Our message is not to be doom and gloom, but without all of those ingredients, it is very difficult to maintain a quality system.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
