News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
For the first time since the passage of Measure 5 in 1991, Sisters schools can go to the voters for operating funds.
The school board is reluctant to do so, even though the district has some serious funding needs.
The local tax option, signed into law by Governor John Kitzhaber earlier this month, allows school districts to seek limited funds from property tax increases without losing their current level of state funding.
According to Sisters schools superintendent Steve Swisher, the move creates "what I consider the most important public policy issue that ... the (school) board has had to face."
Swisher told the board Monday, September 13, that he was surprised the governor signed the bill. He said he is troubled by the possibility that the local tax option will erode equity in state education, allowing well-heeled districts to thrive while poorer districts lag behind.
He said he personally "think(s) the local option is absolutely a bad law and the wrong bill."
Still, he acknowledged that Sisters schools, who have scraped along from one budget crisis to another over the past four years, could well benefit from a local levy.
"We certainly have those needs - to make ourselves solvent, to bring our academic and co-curricular programs to being really well-funded," Swisher said.
Sisters could raise as much as $400 per student through the local option, Swisher estimates. At current enrollment levels, that would add $460,000 to the school district budget.
Sisters schools have won unprecedented community support in recent years, with volunteer efforts raising four elementary school classrooms and the establishment of an active Sisters Schools Foundation.
Swisher and some board members worried that initiating a local tax increase would damage that school-community relationship.
"We have gleaned tremendous community support through literally working together, bootstrapping," Swisher said. "The whole idea of 'how can we do this together' takes on a whole different notion when you ask for the same amount in tax dollars."
Board member Glen Lasken noted that the district is in the midst of long-range facility planning. New school construction foreseen in the next six-to-10- years would also require going to the voters for money.
"I don't want to do anything that will cause ill will or pull the plug on that," Lasken said.
School board chairman Bill Reed, who has served on the school board for over seven years, argued that the state school funding process just doesn't work.
"I watched our ending fund balance, our reserve if you will, dwindle from $750,000 to zero," Reed noted.
He is concerned that, with districts given the option of falling back on voters, the legislature may never "fix" the funding process.
"This might remove some of the sense of urgency for the legislature to act on this," Reed said.
The local tax option can raise, at most, $500 per student or 10 percent of what districts already receive from the state. Another option calculates property tax rates capped under previous measures.
Passage of a local levy requires a "super majority" - 50 percent voter turnout as well as victory at the polls. That means general election would be the district's best bet and Swisher said the earliest the Sisters School District would go to voters is in November 2000.
Swisher noted that Kitzhaber has also proposed a reform package that would allow districts with lower property values to get more money if their citizenry passed a levy. The reform package also includes a "rainy day fund" to tap if the state's economy takes a dive and school funding drops off.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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