The Board of Education on Monday approved the first of two resolutions to place the renewal on the ballot. If passed, it would continue to generate nearly $4.07 million a year to continue current operations and would not cost taxpayers one extra cent.
But if voters reject the renewal, the owner of a $100,000 home could wind up paying an additional $88.14 a year because of a change in state law that would eliminate a 12.5 percent tax roll back and owner-occupied homestead credits on levies passed before August 2013. Levies that were in existence prior to August 2013 maintain those exemptions for taxpayers so long as they are renewed or converted, said Jana Bellamy, the district’s treasurer.
Bellamy said school districts receive funding from the state to cover the credits as a “hold harmless” to taxpayers for fixed-amount emergency levies. Franklin schools receive $581,787, about 14.3 percent of the levy amount, from the state. If the levy should fail, the “hold harmless” funding from the state would stop, she said.
To make up for that revenue loss, voters would need to pass a 10.4-mill levy, Bellamy said.
Superintendent Michael Sander said the need to renew this 9-mill levy was communicated to voters during last fall’s levy campaign. He said the emergency operating levy would continue to ensure Franklin schools are “warm, safe and dry.”
“This is in line with the plan as the board said last year,” said Chris Sizemore, board president.
Next month, the board will have to approve a resolution to proceed to place the levy request on the Feb. 3 ballot.
Originally approved at 9.79-mills in 2005 and renewed again in 2010, the emergency levy’s current millage is 9-mills based on the 2012 tax rates, Bellamy said. Since the district originally approved the emergency levy, property values have decreased and the state also phased out tangible personal property taxes, she said.
Passage would avoid a projected $2.42 million cash deficit at the end of the 2015-2016 fiscal year and would keep the district in the black until 2020 to 2024, based on past financial trends of the district, Bellamy said.
Including this levy, the voters in the district have only approved two other levies since 1995, according to the district.
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