Members of the Milford School District Board of Education will continue to debate adding a new tax next year to fund technology in the classroom at their meeting on Monday.
At a meeting last month, district officials presented their proposed changes to tax rates for the upcoming fiscal year. As part of that presentation, district Chief Operating Officer Tammy Smith floated the idea of the district taking advantage for the first time of a state matching program to cover technology expenses.
The technology program is one of a number of similar matching programs available from the state. Those programs cover everything from extra reading teachers to athletic trainers to minor capital expenses. School districts pay 40% of the cost, while the state makes up the remaining 60%.
Milford School District has traditionally been reluctant to pay into those programs, only utilizing the program that supplements minor capital improvement funding.
This year, however, district staff want to add a program to help pay for new technology to the tune of some $136,000. That idea met with an icy response from Board of Education member Matt Bucher.
“It seems to me that the case would have to be pretty strong for us to entertain drawing from a well we haven't drawn from before without the benefit of the community having their say,” he said. “Unless of course we were going to decrease the current expense rates to make it revenue neutral.”
A change to the current expense rate was not part of Smith’s proposal.
If the board didn’t want to open the door to instituting the match tax for technology, Smith said there were other options available.
“Those costs can come out of operating dollars. We can make that work if the board's not interested in collecting that,” she said.
Superintendent Travis Moorman said he was sympathetic to taxpayers facing rising costs for food, fuel, and almost everything else, but he warned that technology costs were rising fast, and if not addressed, could take larger and larger chunks out of the district’s main budget.
“Those same changes also impact services and resources that are made available to us as a school system,” he told board members. “The cost of laptops has almost doubled over the course of the last five years.”
The tax rate proposal also raises the tuition tax, which helps pay for accommodations for students with special needs, either in the district if possible, or by sending the student to an appropriate program in another district. The rate for minor capital improvements, currently the only state matching program the district pays into, is also rising slightly. Meanwhile, the tax rate for debt service - the interest the district pays on borrowing - is decreasing.
If the district’s proposal is accepted by the board with the new technology tax, tax rates for the average homeowner in Kent County would increase by $34.79, while the average homeowner in Sussex County would see a $32.84 hike.
The Board of Education will see some alternative tax rate plans prepared by district staff at its meeting on Monday, although they might postpone a vote until July.
