Fall operating levy on agenda for Triton Board

Agreeing that this November’s general election is  “going to be a circus” the Triton administrators and Board members held a preliminary discussion last week of the operating levy for the district that will be on the fall ballot.
Most of the discussion at last week’s board work session concentrated on the 2016-2017 budget that was scheduled to be approved at Monday night’s board meeting.
But the upcoming levy was not far from the minds of board members as Supt. Brett Joyce told the board that the district must look carefully at that budget in light of the levy referendum.
“We should do some cutting in house if we are going to ask voters to approve a levy,” he said.
The staff has been working on ways to trim the budget, he said, without affecting students. Some restructuring guidelines have already been agreed to as well as postponing purchase of a new bus.
“We want to keep the cuts away from the classrooms,” he said.
The board had earlier asked administrators to provide them with figures estimating how an operating levy that raised additional per pupil funds would affect taxpayers.
Originally the board asked for estimates ranging from $600 to $900 per pupil. At last week’s meeting the board agreed with Joyce that a practical range was either $700 or $750. Using those figures, the estimated impact for $105,000 home, considered the median price in the district, would be $14.38 a month or $172.50 a year for a $700 levy and $15.81 a month or $189,70 a year for a $750 levy.
Joyce told board members he believed $800 was too high but $700 or $750 would be workable assuming the district makes budget cuts.
He also told board members that the average local levies in the area are $1,000.
“It’s been a long time since we have asked for an operating levy,” Joyce said.
Patty Heminover, from Springsted, the district’s financial consultant, said the board needed to keep in mind that it is harder to get a local levy approved in a presidential year.
The district’s overall