Local option campaign underway

When Ted Thonstad was hired as superintendent of Sisters schools last month, he knew that his first three months would be devoted to one overriding task: winning voter approval of a new "local option levy."

A proposed four-year levy of 75 cents per $1,000 of assessed value will be on the November 2 general election ballot. That is the same rate as the levy that has been in effect in Sisters since 2001-02, which expires at the end of the current fiscal year (2004-05).

A local option brings in money over and above what a district receives in its regular allocation from the state. Districts can actually keep this money rather than tossing it into the statewide school finance pot.

Even so, fewer than two dozen of the 199 school districts in Oregon have been able to persuade their voters to take this opportunity that state law provides to supplement standard funding.

Thonstad said that in the current year the local option tax is bringing in $798,000 for Sisters schools, 9.1 percent of the district's operating funds.

"You can imagine what the school district would look like if we lost those dollars," he told The Nugget after Monday night's school board meeting. "Having this money is critical for us to continue to provide the level of education that I think the people in Sisters have come to expect."

Two weeks ago, a four-member organizing committee was formed composed of Thonstad, two school board members (Tom Coffield and Board Chairman Glen Lasken) and a layman, Mike Gould, who is chairman of the campaign steering committee.

More than a dozen function-based committees of three or four members each, will deal with range of topics from telephones to data management to lawn signs.

These groups are gearing up for a campaign that will become visible by the last week of September. From then until the November 2 election, this small army of volunteers will be working hard to persuade Sisters voters to mark their mail-in ballots "Yes" on the Sisters school levy.

Time is short before the election, but the school board decided to put this measure on the November ballot rather than wait until later. The board did so partly because general elections are free from the worry that not enough registrants will actually vote. In other elections, state law requires property tax measures to receive the approval of a majority of those registered as well as a majority of those voting.

Thonstad noted that he is the only person on the school staff legally allowed to work on levy campaigns during regular working hours. State law grants that exemption to superintendents because raising money for schools is part of their assigned duty. Other school employees can help in such campaigns, but may do so only after hours.

Thonstad is a veteran of successful school money measure campaigns. A resident of Redmond for many years, he led the citizen committees that helped that district pass a tax base and a school bond measure. Later, as a member of the school board, he helped with another school bond.

A Superintendent in Condon he helped gain approval of a bond measure and a local option levy.