Approving the maximum amount Monday evening, the Frazee-Vergas School Board is increasing its levy by 16 percent for taxes payable next year.
The $289,000 increase will bring the budget to nearly $2.1 million.
The overall increase is due to increases in each fund - general, community service and debt service - which aren’t supplemented by the referendum that voters approved in the past.
One thing different for the district is the new Local Optional Revenue program, a statewide funding option approved by the Legislature this year.
“This is new,” Superintendent Terry Karger said Monday. “It will help reduce what the patrons of this district have to pay.”
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The new program is about equality in funding for districts across the state. The state’s share of funding was 11 percent in 2013 and is now at 21 percent.
“It’s helping school districts,” Karger said.
According to the Minnesota Rural Education Association’s website, “every school board will have the opportunity to levy operating dollars on the Referendum Market Value tax base up to $424 per pupil.
“The LER program was appropriately renamed Local Optional Revenue to reflect the fact that this is a statewide program and based on the notion that all districts should have the same opportunity to generate program funds off of the RMV tax base.”
“LOR has been a good thing for us,” Karger said.
Follow Pippi Mayfield on Twitter at @PippiMayfield .
