LEROY – There is more than a hint of desperation in the final days before the results of the LeRoy-Ostrander Independent School District’s levy referendum will be known, officials said.

Saturday, June 24, 2000

LEROY – There is more than a hint of desperation in the final days before the results of the LeRoy-Ostrander Independent School District’s levy referendum will be known, officials said.

It’s there in the blood-red signs on front lawns where the "Vote ‘Yes’ Committee pleas "Vote YES for kids. Save our school."

"If we don not keep our school, our students will have to go somewhere else to school, and then we pay that district’s tax rate. It is not cheaper to go to another district and may be much more expensive," an advertisement in the weekly LeRoy Independent newspaper reads.

Even the two public meetings held at the Ostrander school building and in LeRoy attracted only a few people despite the efforts of the school district’s board of education to publicize the meetings and their importance.

Gerald Payne, chairman of the L-O school board, and Barbara Hovde, the school district’s business manager, are concerned about the apparent silence.

"There are no organized opposition groups. There have been no letters against it in the local newspaper, but we just don’t know," said Payne.

At last week’s end, 400 ballots had been returned and locked away until Thursday, when two election judges will examine them before another two judges will tally the vote.

There are 1,266 registered voters in the L-O school district.

"The school board felt the timing for a mail referendum was perfect," said Hovde. "They need to know what the school district residents are willing to do for financial planning purposes and a mail referendum was the best way to reach everybody and give us a true picture of where they stand."

The ballots were mailed to all registered voters June 12. Detailed instructions came with them. Newsletters and handouts, as well as newspaper advertisements, have explained how to vote in the first-ever mail referendum.

In the waning days before the ballots must be returned (no later than 8 p.m. Thursday), Payne and Hovde cling to the hope that, for the third time in four years, L-O school district voters will approve a referendum.

They did it for an Olympic-sized swimming pool addition – that debt is paid and the tax rolled-off tax bills this year. They did it for a $2.8 million health and safety code-mandated upgrading of facilities two years ago, and they did it last year for a levy renewal.

"Each time, the referendums passed by a 70 percent or more majority," recalled Payne.

 

Payne and Hovde both say school officials are not bluffing when they say the school district faces a financial crisis.

"We’re at the point where there really is nothing else to cut," said Hovde, and she offered proof.

In the 1998-99 school year, a total of $141,769 in spending reductions were made. Last year, another $58,290 was cut from the school district’s budget.

According to Hovde, the L-O school district is on a pace to go from a budget shortfall of $115,560 at the end of the current fiscal year to $228,157 a year from now, $360,474 two years from now and $508,734 three years from now without the additional money from the levy.

With the referendum’s passage, the district could take a negative balance of $228,157 in the red at the end of the 2000-2001 school year and turn it into an immediate positive balance of $56,033 in two years . If the referendum passes this week, the first year the taxes would be collected would be two years from now.

"This is very serious. We have to do something within the next three years. It’s a crisis," said Payne.

The school board delayed its referendum until the LeRoy Task Force received an answer from the Mower County Board of Commissioners on whether the county board would share some of the more than $32 million in unfunded reserves with LeRoy.

A trio of LeRoy residents went to the county board with a plan to help spur residential development in the community, create a before- and after-school child care service and enhance the district’s curriculum.

The county board said "No" to the request, and immediately the school board pushed forward with its plans for a levy referendum.

If approved, the levy referendum would authorize a new levy authority of $367,087 or $191,968 more than the current authority, $175,119.

Acceding to the L-O school district’s computations, the taxes on an estimated market value $40,000 home in the district would increase from $58 to $121 a year, a difference of $63.

Real estate property taxes would also double for other homestead, commercial/industrial and apartment properties as well as agriculture homestead and non-ag homestead land.

However, when the district’s swimming pool levy was paid off, taxes dropped.

And, like other Minnesotans, property owners have seen their actual school property taxes decrease over the past three years because of changes in property tax laws and declining school enrollment.

Payne and Hovde worry the school district’s voters will be tempted to see only the anticipated doubling of their taxes if the levy referendum passes Thursday and not all the reasons why.

"We had 15 people at the meeting in Ostrander and between 30 and 40 at the meeting we held in LeRoy," Payne said. "We went to the senior centers in both towns, sent out the newsletters and tried to be as honest and up front as we could about it. We haven’t hid anything. We shared everything we had with the public."

Both Payne and Hovde say the district has enjoyed a healthy tradition of support from school district residents who value their school.

"The school is the center of the community," Payne said. "We have the LeRoy Community Theater in here this summer. The LeRoy Community Band is rehearsing here. This building is busy during the school year and throughout the rest of the year."

A new child care service has debuted at the LeRoy school facility that includes transportation services to Ostrander and back.

For nine months of the year, the job is educating the district’s children and teen-agers and spurring their interests in extra-curricular activities.

Two years ago, the district’s enrollment was 506 students in grades kindergarten through 12. Last year, it was 503, and this year, it was 479.

Next year, it is anticipated to fall to 450 and 430 the year after that.

By current projections, it could fall to 383 in five years.

Hovde and Payne said consolidating is not the answer to the L-O financial woes.

"If we would go somewhere else, we would be paying more for education than we are now," said Hovde. "We would have to pay our share of their debt as well as our own debt. Consolidation is not the answer."

"If the referendum fails, we will come back a year from now and have to do it all over again and for a larger amount of money," Payne said. "And with the state’s statutory operating debt limits hanging over us, things would not get any better.

"We would have to give serious consideration of what is the future of the school district," Payne said.

So, Hovde and Payne are watching and waiting with anxious anticipation what happens to the district’s first-ever mail-in levy referendum this week.

Payne remains positive.

"This district’s voters agreed to pay to have the building they educate their children in improved and upgraded to satisfy health and safety code regulations," Payne said. "Now, we have the opportunity to pay to educate the people who are using that building."