The Richfield School District faces up to $3.7 million in budget cuts if a levy request on next Tuesday's ballot is rejected by voters, Superintendent Robert Slotterback says.
The district is asking voters to extend an existing property tax levy, set to expire after the 2012-13 school year, for another 10 years and to approve an increase in the district's overall levy authority by $60 per student.
If approved, the first question will not change property tax rates in the district, but question two would raise the average homeowner's property taxes by about $16 annually, or $1.33 per month.
Even if the levy passes in the referendum, some cuts are inevitable, Slotterback says. Unless the state significantly increases its funding for public schools, he estimates that the district will have to trim about $1.2 million from its budget. Unfortunately, he says, this means some people will lose their jobs.
"I don't want to sugar-coat this," Slotterback said. "Even if the referendum passes, we're still going to have layoffs. We're just not going to have as many layoffs."
Like the majority of Minnesota's 337 public school districts, Richfield increasingly relies on property tax levies to cover their operating costs, which have outpaced state funding.
Even with the help of local taxpayers, Slotterback says Richfield has been operating on a tight budget in recent years. However, he adds that the district has done all it can to minimize the impact of its budget woes on its teaching staff.
"We've turned the heat down as far as we can, we've stretched the bus routes as far as we can go, we've limited our paper use. But all of that makes up only about 18 percent of our budget," Slotterback said. "We've reduced that 18 percent as much as we possibly can, and consequently what's left are people."