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New tax option levy has a flaw Ashland Schools Coalition says assessment math is flawed By Wendy Siporen of the Mail Tribune ASHLAND -- The Ashland Schools Coalition is reconsidering its endorsement of a $1.93 million, five-year local option tax levy for the district's schools after learning that the new taxing authority adopted by the Legislature last year is not as rosy as it first appeared. Members of the coalition -- which formed last year to lobby for increased funding for schools -- learned recently that they will not be able to collect the $1.8 million annually that they say the district needs to maintain current academic and extracurricular activities over the next five years. Jackson County Assessor Dan Ross originally estimated that the school district would be able to collect up to $1.8 million under the local option levy for schools. But new calculations have determined that if voters approved the $1.93 million levy in May, the district would be able to collect only $1.1 million to $1.2 million of that total. "The Legislature gave us what looked like a lifeline to be able to locally support our schools ... because they knew it (school funding) wasn't enough," said coalition member Amy Amrhein. "The problem is that the implementation of the law doesn't allow us to collect what we levy." The Corvallis school district, the first in the state to adopt a local option levy for schools last November, is having similar problems, Amrhein said. The new taxing authority is based on the gap between a property's assessed value and its real market value. For example, an Ashland resident with a home assessed at $150,000 now pays $750 annually for schools, but could be paying up to $1,000 based on a real market value of $200,000 (capped at Measure 5 limits of $5 per $1,000 of value). Ballot Measure 5, passed in 1990, limited the amount of property taxes local governments could collect. Ballot Measure 50, passed by voters in 1997, rolled back property values to 90 percent of 1995-96 levels and capped annual increases at 3 percent per year. The problem comes, said Ross, because the gap between the assessed value and real market value varies from property to property. In some cases there's no gap at all. "There's no way to collect the (entire) gap with a fixed tax rate because the gap varies from property to property," said Ross. Some property owners would wind up paying no more than they currently do. Ironically, those property owners who received more of a benefit from Measure 50 would pay more, said Ross. "It's a crazy mess," said Ross. "I'm perfectly confident that they (the Legislature) didn't have a clue that this wasn't going to work. My guess is that when this was put together no one really sat down and analyzed what it's all about. Now the schools are in a bind." Keil and Amrhein say they are now forced to go back to the school board to tell them the bad news and decide on an alternative. Options include asking voters to renew a larger school activity levy or doing some combination of the two. A youth activities levy to fund sports and extracurricular activities was first approved in 1994 to help make up the shortfall in school funding caused by Measure 5. A second $1.1 million levy will expire this year. The school district is now looking for a way to continue funding these nonacademic activities and pad the budget, which has been balanced in recent years only by using reserve funds. "We don't want to be mired in numbers. We want to just concentrate on what the district needs," said Amrhein. "We want to make it simple so that voters can support the schools." The school board must make a decision before March 16, the deadline for filing for the May ballot. The City Council would have to approve putting another youth activities levy on the ballot. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA