Powder River Examiner -

At the monthly March board meeting, trustees discussed a requirement from House Bill 307 from the 2017 legislative session to adopt a resolution estimating permissive mills. Permissive mills are essentially a tax without voter approval. Since many districts were having difficulty passing levies to improve and update their facilities, House Bill 307 provided an avenue for them to generate revenue permissively. The trade-off was that all districts would be required to publish a resolution denoting any potential increase or decrease to selected funds. Just like last year, we will publish our resolution in the Powder River Examiner and denote no increase or decrease in all funds.

Your district has been fortunate to have the ability to update and maintain its facilities. I also understand the desire of some schools to permissively levy their taxpayers. However, permissively levying for facilities could certainly affect taxpayer support when a general fund levy is proposed. This community has always supported our general fund operating levies. My contention is some districts are sacrificing future community support to improve their facilities. As a result, I believe they are jeopardizing the trust between the school and community. As previously stated, we will publish our resolution in this week’s paper stating there will be no increase.

On behalf of this district, I would like to thank this community for all their support.