Cambridge school board seeks levy approval

 

 Cambridge School District trustees will ask voters in May to approve a funding request to repair and update school buildings. 

 The school board approved a resolution earlier this month to seek a plant and facilities levy that would raise $100,000 annually for five years. 

 The levy vote will take place on May 21 and requires a simple majority to pass. 

 If approved, the proposed plant and facilities levy would cost homeowners $49.78 per $100,000 of assessed value, according to school district officials.

 Superintentent Ed Schumacher said the proceeds from the levy won’t cover all of the items on the list of needed upgrades and repairs to district buildings, but it will cover some of the deferred maintanance.

 Among the repairs needed, at the elementary school, the asphalt in the playground area is in need of work and the building needs new siding. The old tennis courts have cracks. 

 At the high school, the concession stand is in need of renovation and the roof needs work so it doesn’t create an ice rink outside one door in the winter. The high school also is due for security upgrades and cameras and the list goes on.

 The funding request is in addition to a separate supplemental levy approved by district voters in 2018 for two years that raises $80,000 annually in property taxes for a total of $160,000. By law, the levy has to be voted every two years and it must be renewed in 2020. 

 The school district actually will be levying less in property taxes this year.

 The district is making the final payment of $230,000 on a 20-year bond that raised more than $3 million in 1998 to build the new middleschool/high school in Cambridge.  

 With the bonds retired, property owners in the school district will no longer pay $114.40 per $100,000 of taxable value annually on the debt.

  District officials provided details on how the proposed plant and facilities levy and the existing supplemental levy will impact property taxes in the school district in 2019.

 Taxes will go down in the district this year, even if voters approve the plant and facilities levy in May,  Schumacher said.

 Between the existing supplemental levy of $80,000 annually already approved and the proposed additional plant and facilities levy of $100,000 annually, the district would collect $180,000 in property taxes in the two levies. Homeowners would pay $89.61 per $100,000 of assessed value in 2019. 

 The district, which takes in portions of both Washington and Adams counties and has an enrollment of about 130 students.

 District administrators and school board trustees in Cambridge are planning to hold a couple of public meetings  with voters to talk about the plant and facilities levy and why  why they think it is needed.