“I said last year that this would happen and people would get upset,” S-B district superintendent Jeff Koenig

made known as he shared that the local Stanely-Boyd school levy rate for 2020 was projected to rise to 0.007819, thereby resulting in $2.975 million for district education from local taxpayers. The levy rate is based on property holdings, and a rise in assessed land values district wide with other calculation details meant that the overall school levy rate decreased in 2019 without much change in funds raised.

Returning to 2020, an additional $95,000 from District Fund 80 will bring the local contribution toward district education to $3.07 million, while equalized general state aid estimated at $7,847,402 as of July 1, means that around 28.6 percent of the $10.73 million Stanley-Boyd Schools budget will come from this year’s local property taxes and District Fund 80. So what might that mean for you personally? Let’s do the math.

Outside school aid is determined in large part through local enrollment figures, meaning that more students in school is more funding to the district, to the tune of about $10,000 per student. For raising local funds meanwhile, the school levy rate is calculated from assessed property values as a contribution per $1,000 of property value assessed to the landowner. In plain English, this means that to calculate your expected individual contribution to the school tax levy you should take the expressed rate of 0.007819 and move the decimal point three spaces to the right to come out with the rate per $1,000, or in this case $7.82 when rounded up. Own real estate property assessed at $100,000? Then just move the decimal two more places to the right and your expected personal contribution for S-B education for 2020 should be around $782 flat. Have a different assessed property value? Then take that same levy rate of $7.82 per $1,000 and multiply it by your property’s assessed value, expressed according to the number of thousands involved. Own a home or piece of land that’s worth $95,000? Then just take 7.82 and multiply it by 95 to get your expected tax contribution to local schools. For a home appraised at $123,500, just use 123.5 multiplied by 7.82 to get your expected personal contribution, in line with the amount of thousands involved. With property taxes coming due soon, planning ahead to set aside what you can (if you can) could end up being a real lifesaver come the December and January pay-in cycle. Official numbers will come out after the upcoming budget hearing Monday October 26, scheduled for 8:00 p.m. after the school board meeting.

As it turned out, however, the levy wasn’t the only budget item to come up at the September meeting. Also included was employee health insurance, for which the school board opted to go with Security Health, for an increase of 12.59 percent in insurance costs. Motion was made by Carlson and seconded by Denise Hoffstatter, passing unanimously.

Meanwhile the first review of the S-B district’s Federal Funds Management Policy was carried out, being modeled on Cornell’s policy and combining what were formally separate parts into a single whole.

Along with healthcare and policy consolidation, the replacement of the bus fleet came up for discussion, with cost to the district estimated at $180,000. The difference between 11 new buses and selling 10 is $310,000, while if the district qualifies for high cost transportation aid in the next fiscal year, it would be reimbursed $248,000 by the state. Meanwhile, CESA 10 has been hired for a facility assessment to the tune of $16,700 as approved at the June meeting, while the pavement of the bus garage area and roof work were also discussed, with no roof repairs urgently needed.

“It’s not an ideal surface,” Koenig said of the bus garage area reportedly once lowland before getting filled in with different materials, including large boulders. Each spring the school district deals with major potholes, courtesy of nature. Along with the natural freeze-thaw cycle each year was a manmade issue at Oriole Park, where a rubber membrane punctured during the setting of concrete forms during construction was letting moisture into the team rooms, thereby meaning the school district couldn’t store anything in the space between seasons, lest it deteriorate from moisture. Replacing the rubber membrane and concrete over it would cost an estimated $70,053. Board member Carlson suggested putting a roof over the area, to which Koenig said that while “in theory” such a fix would prevent moisture from trickling down, there were a lot of ways for water to get in.