Cedar Rapids School Board approves tax hike, studies possible reductions

It's official, for now: Taxpayers in the Cedar Rapids Community School District will see a 69 cent increase in the district's property tax levy rate.

At a regular meeting Monday, board members certified the district's fiscal year 2014 budget, which includes raising the tax rate to $15.85 per $1,000 of taxable valuation from $15.16 during 2013. That number could change depending on the rate of allowable growth funding state legislators approve to fund education.

School board members and administrators are pushing for a 4 percent increase in allowable growth, but some legislators have only proposed a 2 percent increase. The deadline for Iowa's school districts to certify their budgets is Monday, April 15, even though education funding has not been finalized.

"At the end of the day, I really feel we have to go with [this] because of the situation we're under," said Board Member Allan Witt of the increase. "I am extremely upset that we're in this predicament but we only have one way to go with this."

The Iowa Department of Management will automatically lower the tax rate to accommodate an increase in education funding. Should the Legislature set allowable growth at 3 percent, local taxpayers could see that rate dip to $15.60.

The tax increase will supply an additional $4.6 million in the district's general fund cash reserve levy.

Board members also adopted a budget guarantee resolution, a state-approved funding safeguard designed to protect districts facing no increase in allowable growth or declining enrollment.

"It will take pressure off the district's fund balance," Graham said. "We still must reduce in order to live within our spending authority."

The lack of certainty about education funding has led the district and the Cedar Rapids Education Association, the local teachers' union, to agree to delay contract negotiations until legislators set allowable growth. Graham based the budget on the assumption that employee settlements would increase by 2.7 percent, while general fund expenditures would decrease by 2.6 percent or $5 million.

During a work session on Monday, board members took their first formal look at a proposal to eliminate $4.43 million from the district's general fund. That package included 48.6 full-time equivalent (FTE) staffing reductions, including 12 FTE from the middle and high school levels. That would mean each middle school would lose two general education staff members and each high school would lose four, as well as one paraprofessional. Each elementary school would need to trim .5 FTE paraprofessional time, for a total of 15.7 FTE totaling $451,249.

"We're being somewhat vague in our descriptions because we don't want to identify certain individuals because they haven't been identified yet in many cases," said Superintendent Dave Benson during the work session. "We're not going to discuss individuals."

Deputy Superintendent Gary O'Malley, who presented the package, said those cuts would not involve eliminating programming at the secondary schools and that retirements and resignations would allow for many instructors, who largely teach core classes, to stay employed in the district.

"These reductions are very difficult, but they're necessary because we've been overspending our reserves," O'Malley said.

Other proposed cuts include reductions in administrative travel, staff at the Educational Learning and Support Center and increased efficiency to lower energy costs.

Board members are expected to complete the line-item budget process, which includes finalizing those reductions, by Sunday, June 30.