Colby K-12 approves three tax levy scenarios
By Nathaniel Underwood
The Colby School Board moved ahead with three separate plans for the district’s property tax levy at their most recent meeting held on Monday.
After confirming a budget of about $15.6 million in revenues and about $1 million less in expenses for the 2024-25 school year, the board had to make three alternate plans for the district’s property tax levy based on the possible outcomes of the referendum that will be voted on during the Nov. 5 elections.
The referendum, which is split into two questions, will be asking for $17.8 million in the first question and $7.7 million in the second question, for a combined $25.5 million if both were to pass. However, with a prior referendum of almost $16 million about to come off the books for the district, the new referendum’s impact on the tax levy will not be as significant as one might expect in 2024 25. Should neither question pass, the district will establish a property tax levy of $3.3 million for the 2024-25 school year, with a mil rate of $5.36 per thousand dollars of property value. This would be less than the 2023-24 levy of $3.6 million, which had a mil rate of $6.46, and more in line with the levy of 2022-23, which had a tax levy of $3.3 million and a mill rate of $7.04.
Over the past four years, the district has seen its mil rate drop significantly. After close to a decade of the mill rate sitting in the range of $9.11 to $9.68, since 2020 it has dropped every year, a result of increasing equalized valuation of properties. The actual tax levies have remained relatively steady, however, hovering between $3 million and $3.5 million between 2017 and the 2023-24 school year.
Should both referendums pass, the school board moved to establish a property tax levy of just over $4 million with a mil rate of $6.46. This would keep the mil rate steady, but would see the increase in tax dollars go above the typical budgets that the school has approved over the last few years.
According to data provided by the school district, the average homeowner, which the district noted as having a property value of $160,000, would see their annual property taxes increase roughly $104 if both questions were to pass.
In the third scenario, in which one referendum question would pass but the second would not, the board moved to establish a property tax levy at $3.7 million with a mil rate of $5.96.
Other business
■■ Superintendent Patrick Galligan gave the school board a report on the third Friday enrollment numbers. The overall district enrollment numbers have remained similar over the past few years, with the district reporting 926 students in September, compared to 920 in September of 2023 and 928 in 2022.
“We’ve been remarkably steady in terms of numbers overall compared to a lot of other districts in our area that are dealing with the consequences of declining enrollment. So that’s a real positive for us,” Galligan said.
■ ■ The board made an adjustment to the school calendar, changing the last day of school on Friday, May 30, to a half-day of school due to the Colby track team hosting the sectional track meet this year.
■ ■ The board agreed to another five-year commitment with Rural Virtual Academy, which provides an alternative virtual learning option to students within the district.
“I believe this is a good agreement for the district because, while we do pay RVA for services for some students who do use the programming up there, it is still a net win for the district in terms of those students being counted as district students for funding mechanisms,” Galligan noted.
There were 29 students in the Colby School District that were enrolled at RVA for the third Friday student counts in September, the most the district has had.
■ ■ The board approved the purchase of a security software update from Singlewire Software that will allow each building’s offices to use facial recognition programs on visitors looking to enter school buildings during the normal school day. This program would run the information through databases to see if the visitor would have any reason not to be allowed into the school. The software would not be used for identification of students at this time. The cost of the program and associated licenses for a three-year term was $8,093.
Patrick Galligan
