We're preparing for another amazing school year as our students return on August 11th. Our NeSA scores are at an all-time high. Our FFA program is amazing. Our Fine Arts department is as strong as any in the state. Speech and One-Act have won state championships in the past three years. Our band and vocal music programs are award-winning as well. We have several athletic teams poised to battle for more conference, district, and state championships. Extra-curriculars like Mock Trial, Robotics, and others get better and better each year. Our facilities are beautiful. We enjoy tremendous support from our parents, patrons, and community. We're adding to an already robust curriculum across the board. Life is good as a York Duke....and it's going to get even better!
This is why I get so passionate about defending what we're doing and how we're doing it. Don't believe the rhetoric that school spending causes high property taxes. I've written on this topic at least a dozen times since January. I've shared countless examples of valuation per student, tax levies, etc. Here are some more illustrations from YPS that show we have a funding problem and not a spending one.
* Our fiscal year ends on August 31st and we are projected to spend LESS in 2015-16 than we did in 2014-15. We project to spend $15,350,000 in 2015-16 compared to $15,358,531 in 2014-15
* We are projected to receive much less in 2015-16 than we did in 2014-15, however. It looks like we will receive $15,750,000 in 2015-16 compared to $16,040,850 in 2014-15. Keep in mind that we had to increase our property tax revenue by $1,000,000 when comparing this year to last year and we're still going to have LESS overall revenue. State aid went down $654,167 by itself.
* Our total, overall revenue in which to make a budget has increased just an average of 3% annually over the past three fiscal years. However, in order to make this small increase work, we’ve had to increase local property taxes by 29.9% in that same 3-year span. Yes, we have a property tax issue and we are way too reliant on local property tax revenue. We've said this for years.
* Our total, overall revenue in which to make a budget has increased just an average of 2.06% annually over the past seven fiscal years. However, in order to make that small increase work, we’ve had to increase local property taxes by 35.3% in that same 7-year span. Yes, we have a property tax issue and we are way too reliant on local property tax revenue. State Aid has gone from $3,710,000 in 2008-09 to $572,000 in 2016-17. See any correlation?
* As we look ahead to the 2016-17 fiscal year that begins on September 1st, we project that our total spending will increase about 2% over 2015-16, mostly due to fixed cost increases as we will be doing without in many areas once again as we delay curriculum adoptions, technology upgrades, and vehicle purchases. It is pretty much a sure thing that our total revenue will decrease by $200,000. We're looking to have to add $350,000 in local property tax revenue to help offset the loss of $988,000 more in state aid. You see, when you have to increase property taxes by $350,000 in order to keep your total revenue decline at $200,000 less than the year before, there's something wrong. When your total average spending increase is less than 1.8% for the past eight years, it isn't spending that's the problem.
We're real proud to serve the York Dukes. We're real proud to be part of Nebraska's public school system. We're real proud to work hard each day to get better and better. Thanks for your support.
Go Dukes!
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