Assembly Approves School District’s Budget

Brianna Gibbs/KMXT
During its regular meeting last night the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly approved almost $11 million dollars for the school district for the FY 2015 school year.
As borough manager Bud Cassidy explained, $10,625,600 of that will be generated from personal property taxes collected by the borough according to its mill rate.
“Along with this is an additional $280,000 in vehicle registration tax, collected by the borough, but mandated to go to the schools. So the total contribution to the school district by the borough of in cash and in kind services is $10,905,600.”
During a borough budget presentation at the beginning of last night’s meeting Finance Director Karl Short said the school district asked for $11,171,800 for FY 2015, which is an increase of about $521,000 over the current budget.

“At this time the borough is budgeting 9.16 mill rate for education support, which means the owner of a $300,000 would pay $2,748 in property tax.”
Last year the borough’s budget resolution stated the mill rate at 8.75 mills, but Assemblyman Aaron Griffin verified with Short on why the tax levy was actually 9.16 mills, which would make it the same as the rate approved for FY 2015.
“But when we counted the amount of money, I think we had $200,000 in transfers just from the general fund and then we had another $160,000 from the facilities fund, is that correct? That’s correct. So when we count the entire amount, which including those fund transfers, we came out with 9.16 as the tax levy, the actual tax levy amount, not including our DMV taxes, that is correct? That is correct. OK, so we are maintaining 9.16 mills from last year as the true and accurate value of the taxes levied on the public over to this year for a flat mill levy. Correct.”
The borough approved the $10.9 million budget for the school district in a 4-1 vote with Assemblyman Mel Stephens voting against it. Stephens said he didn’t feel comfortable increasing funding to the district when student enrollment was declining.
While the approved budget was smaller than what the school district requested, Cassidy said it was still $140,000 more than what the borough allocated the district last year.