Owen-Withee School District Asking Residents to Approve Operational Referendum on April 2nd
Friday, March 22nd, 2019 -- 8:03 AM
-The Owen-Withee School District will be asking district residents to pass a referendum to help them once again.This has become an all too common occurrence for Clark County’s school districts as they continue to fight declining enrollment and declining state aid. District Administrator Bob Houts explained that this is an operational referendum to go over the state imposed revenue limit. The money is for current operations and maintenance. No new programs or buildings will be financed with this money. The district is asking for voters to approve a 5 year, $400,000 per year referendum to replace the $300,000 referendum passed by voters 5 years ago that expires June 30th of this year. The actual increase from what the district currently has would be $100,000 per year. Mr. Houts said the impact on the mil rate would be $1.02 per thousand. In fall of 2017 Owen-Withee’s mil rate was $8.80.
This year, fall of 2018, the district under levied by $200,000 to give property owners a break, which set the mil rate at $7.41. The estimated levy in 2019 with the passage of the referendum will be $8.43, so the 2019 mil rate will actually be $.37 lower than in 2017. If the referendum doesn’t pass, Mr. Houts said the district will have a $400,000 whole in the budget that will need to be repaired by drastic cuts to programs and educational opportunities for kids. Every penny will be spent to maintain their programs and facilities. Without the money they will need to cut programs to balance the budget.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.