FORKS — The Quillayute Valley School Board will consider putting a two-year maintenance and operations levy before voters when it meets on Tuesday, chairman Bill Rohde said.
The board reviewed the proposed 2009 budget, and discussed possible dates and amounts for the levy, but made no final decisions, during a special meeting earlier this week, Rohde said.
At the Tuesday meeting, the board will consider two possible dates, said Superintendent Diana Reaume: Feb. 3 or March 10.
The consensus of the board was to keep the amount of the levy at its present level, Reaume said.
“In our current four-year levy, we are raising $570,000 per year, and we intend on keeping it at that,” she said.
The current rate is $1.43 per $1,000 assessed valuation.
However, because the assessed value of property has gone up, the rate would drop to about $1.16 per $1,000 assessed valuation, Reaume said.
That means the owner of a $200,000 home would pay about $232 annually in property taxes.
“This is not a new tax,” she said. “This is just a replacement of what we already have right now.”
The board also has discussed the possibility of asking voters again to approve a bond to rebuild portions of the high school, Reaume said.
How the proposed bond would be altered from the $11 million proposal that failed during the November general election has not been determined, she said.
As far as general maintenance and operations, the district is facing uncertain times, Reaume said.
Currently the state Legislature is allotting about $600,000 per year through levy equalization funds, which is given to property-poor districts in the state.
However, the potential for that allocation to be lashed is high, Reaume said.
“We will really be hurting if those funds get cut,” she said.
The district already was asked to reduce its current budget for the spring semester by about $30,000.
“Even though that doesn’t sound like much, it is a lot for a small district like us,” Reaume said.
The staff also is prioritizing a long list of requests from the schools.
“One big one is the failing phone system we have in place right now,” Reaume said.
“Another issue is heating at the middle school, and the really big leaking roof at the elementary campus.
“These are all huge things, and we can’t do everything, and there are many smaller things, but those are three of the big ones.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
