Taxes to go up about $20 for school levy
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
People who enjoy talking about taxes are probably few and far between, except for maybe tax preparers.
Wednesday’s discussion about the Underwood Public School’s 2017-18 budget, which included discussion about the mill levy increase that will be coming to help balance the school’s budget, wasn’t completely unpleasant.
Supt. Brandt Dick did lots of numbers crunching in preparation for breaking the news to the school board members, as he presented a proposed budget that includes a 4.02 mill increase, 1.18 of which goes to special assessments, 0.1 percent to tuition, and a 2.97 increase in the general fund.
Any increase is usually seen as a negative, he noted, but when looking at the numbers from the past, the percentage of taxes coming from its patrons to cover the school’s budget is pretty much in line as 10 years ago.
It went down a few years ago because the state started kicking in quite a bit more, and when the oil boom started decreasing, the school’s patrons had to start kicking in a little bit more. The patrons will now be back to about where they were in 2008-2009, noted Supt. Dick, as far as percentages are concerned.
