Residents of the Bethel-Tate school district may soon face the decision to pass or defeat a school levy issue. Then again, said district superintendent Jim Smith, they may not.
The final decision has not been made, but the current status of funding in the district leaves little room for the district planners to move in.
“The school revenue committee reported (a need) to the board,” said Smith. “Like a lot of schools, our state funding has been flat-lined in the current state budget. That means we are getting similar dollars compared to what we got last year. The problem is, the expenses keep going up. They aren’t the same as what we saw last year or the year before. We’re in a crunch in regards to finances. This is the same issue that other districts are having.”
The “crunch,” said Smith, results from the district being mainly operated through state funds. In fact, only 30 percent of the district’s yearly budget comes through means other than state funding. That results in most of the district’s revenue being shy of the inflationary rate of expenditures.