Cedar Rapids school taxes could rise, but by how much?

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Cedar Rapids Community School District is proposing to raise property taxes up to an additional 8 cents for every $1,000 of taxable value.

But that could change, depending on what the Legislature does.

The School Board has scheduled an April 13 public hearing on its proposed 2015-16 budget, which would raise the district's overall rate to $15.56 from $15.48 per $1,000 of taxable valuation.

That 8-cent increase is based on a proposal in the state Senate to increase education funding by 4 percent.

But if a proposal in the Iowa House to increase education funding by a lesser amount - 1.25 percent - is adopted instead, the local rate would likely decrease, to $15.42, business services executive director Steve Graham said Wednesday.

Any change in the tax rate must be approved by the School Board, Graham stressed. The new budget takes effect July 1.

The district is publishing a budget with the proposed 8 cent rate increase, Superintendent David Benson said, because once a rate is published it can only be lowered, not raised.

The Legislature has not yet decided on a funding level for schools.

'We don't know what the state is doing yet,” Graham said. 'We're all waiting. At this point, it is all conjecture.”

The district's tax rate likely would remain $15.48, Graham said, if state funding increases by 2.5 percent.

If the Legislature does not take action on funding for schools, he added, the district would get an automatic 1 percent increase in its regular program funding because its enrollment has declined.

That funding increase - which would be made up entirely of local property taxes - would translate to a 13-cent property tax rate increase, Graham said. But Graham told the board there instead is flexibility in the proposed budget to deal with that possibility.

The proposed 2015-16 budget includes total district revenues of about $266 million and total district expenditures of about $258 million.

Taxes levied by the board make up about 40 percent of all property taxes that landowners in the district pay.

At its meeting on Monday, the school board also set an April 13 public hearing on a proposal to extend the district's instructional support levy, which supports the district's general fund. The tax provides about $9 million in funding each year, Graham told board members, or about 10 percent of the district's regular program cost.

The current instructional support levy expires in June 2016. The proposed extension would run from the 2016-17 school year through the 2020-21 school year and would not exceed 10 percent of the regular program cost.

Board members also expressed some concern Monday about a district proposal to change the schedule of physical education classes at Jefferson and Kennedy high schools. The proposal would have students take physical education every day for one semester, rather than every other day for an entire year.

Board member Gary Anhalt said he thought students should be active throughout the year.

'You need activity on a regular basis,” he said. 'Being in physical well-being in the winter doesn't help you if you're not doing anything in the spring or the fall.”

Instructional services director Karla Ries said some students at Jefferson High School who take physical education daily have stayed in better shape even after the course ends.

The board decided to delay action on the proposal until it receives further information from administrators. Ries told board members that Washington High School chose not to adopt the proposed change.