River Valley Superintendent Tom Shade says the district is going to look a lot different with the cuts were made earlier this year. The failure of the levy Tuesday is not going to help that situation, which Shade says will only get worse without new funds.
River Valley voters said no to a property tax increase that would have been phased in over the next few years. The result was even worse than the defeat back in November when the district asked for a straight increase.
Shade said they are obviously disappointed, but they are moving on. He said the board will be meeting in the next couple of weeks to discuss the next step. He said that coming to the voters in August is unlikely because of the cost involved and that November would likely see River Valley on the ballot with another levy request.
The make-up of any future levy hasn’t been decided on at this point. Shade did say that it will probably not be an income tax as the board has expressed their opinion that it’s not in the best interest of the district’s taxpayers.
The River Valley school board approved a number of cuts earlier this year. With the decision to not purchase new textbooks, the board says they cut around $750,000 from the budget. $488,000 of that came in the form of personnel. Those cuts included high school art and French, middle school work and family study, and a web design and multi-media course, among others.
Shade said there could still be changes made, including the possibility of raising the extra-curricular fees.
It could get worse, warns Shade, who said that without new funds, the district will be forced to make “significant cuts” by the end of the 2010-2011 school year.
Shade says the levy committee believes the vote against the levy is less a question of the district operation and education offered, but that it’s more about taxes and the state of the economy.
Shade explained that River Valley is in the top one-third in the state academically and in the bottom one-third in terms of cost per student.
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