Rockwood Discusses Possibility of Operating Tax Increase

In the wake of the defeat of two bond issues in the last several years, the Rockwood School District is now looking toward new ways to fund (or not to fund) a variety of maintenance, capital and technology items.

The district’s Chief Financial Officer Tim Rooney laid out several options for the board during its annual retreat earlier this month. Chief among the possibilities is asking voters for an increase in the operating tax levy assessed by Rockwood.

Any such increase could then be earmarked specifically for maintenance and technology expenses. In the past, Rooney told Patch, bond issues typically covered these items.

“We are now stuck in a situation were we either don’t do capital funding or we absorb it into our operating funds,” he said.

For now, the district is using its fairly healthy reserve fund to cover the deficit and pay for a raft of critical expenses ($3.1 million for preventative maintenance and $2.5 million for a technology refresh), but Rooney said this is not a long-term solution.

“If you took that out of operations and funded it in the traditional way, you wouldn’t have a deficit at all,” he said.

It would also allow the district to do better strategic planning since they would have a relatively set amount of money for those kinds of expenses coming in each year. Unlike bond issues, it could also be more targeted to where the district is growing and has the most need, such as Eureka.

The board also discussed the political liabilities of increasing the operating tax levy, which stood at $4.54 per $100 of assessed valuation in 2012, in the wake of the bruising, failed Prop S campaign.

According to a report in West Newsmagazine about the Rockwood retreat, board member Jeffrey Morrell said he feared that voters would react negatively to any such request.

Board President Bill Brown noted that an operating tax increase faces a lower hurdle toward approval, requiring only 50 percent of the vote instead of the 57 percent required for bond issues. The district last asked for a rate bump in 1994.

However, even by that standard, the most recent bond issues would still have failed. It received a “yes” from around 47 percent of voters.

Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions, the citizens watchdog group that has previously been critical of the district's leadership , expressed skepticism about a taxy levy increase in a post from co-founder Eileen Tyrrell on the group’s Facebook page.

“Before any further discussion of a tax levy takes place, the Rockwood District Administrators must earn back the trust of the taxpayer,” she wrote.

Of course, there is always the option of not seeking out any new revenue at all. It might be cheaper over the short run, but Rooney cautioned that skipping on preventative maintenance could led to more expensive emergency fixes later on.

“I am trying to explain the various options and let [the board] make a decision as to how they want to move forward,” he said, adding that he hopes the public will “engage themselves” on the issue.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify the position of RS for RS during the most recent election cycle.