District 196 to Forgo Levy Referendum

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district board won't ask voters to consider a levy referendum question on the November election ballot.

At its Monday workshop, administrators recommended that the district forgo the levy referendum because of additional funding the state will provide in the future, as well as a change in a property tax credit many homeowners previously received.

The board ended the discussion by neglecting to ask for further work on putting a question on the ballot, which would need to be done by Aug. 25.

The state will give the district an extra $50 per pupil on the general education formula allowance this year, and another $50 extra during 2012-13, for a total of about $1.5 million in each of the two years, Director of Finance and Operations Jeff Solomon said. The general education formula allowance had been frozen at $5,124 per pupil for the past four years.

Another $2.96 million will come to the district for the 2012-13 school year, as one-time compensatory aid; the aid can be used for basic skills expenses, Solomon said.

The state Legislature implemented the one-time compensatory aid for the 20 districts in the state with the largest enrollments, besides Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth, Solomon said. District 196 will receive the most money of any district in the state in compensatory aid, he said.

Literacy aid will bring $1.63 million to the district for the 2012-13 school year. This is based on literacy achievement among third- and fourth-graders, Solomon said.

Solomon also addressed the elimination of the Market Value Homestead Credit as a reason not to ask for a levy referendum.

The program previously provided a credit to homeowners on their property tax bill. Without it, it's likely that many people's property taxes will go up even if home values go down, Solomon said.

He said it might impact the board's credibility to ask for a levy referendum when people will already see their property taxes go up, even though the loss of the credit was not the board's decision.

"It’d be a poor year … for us to do that because of that," Solomon said.

Because the district predicted a 3.5-percent reduction in state funding for this coming year, but there actually were no cuts to education funding in the state budget, the district likely won't have to make cuts for 2012-13, Solomon said.

And because of the additional funding, the district's deficit for 2013-14 should be closer to $6.5 million, rather than a previously anticipated $12.5 million, he said.

In this scenario, the district wouldn't ask for a levy referendum this year or next year, but it's possible that the board could ask again in years beyond that.

About 40 percent of the state's districts will put a levy referendum question on the ballot this fall, Solomon said.