Nickel Tax

At our recent board meeting our board voted not to continue pursuing the nickel tax with a ballot measure. It was difficult for them because they all see the need. The failure of our initiative to implement the nickel tax represents a significant missed opportunity for our students, faculty and staff, district, and community. Our plan was to move from a reactive approach to a proactive approach with regard to our aging and failing infrastructure. With this revenue we planned to address serious concerns that would improve the learning and working environments at every campus in our district. Unfortunately, more than 1000 community members rejected that plan by signing a petition to recall this effort. 

The Board of Education and I understand that asking our community to contribute more to our schools by way of this tax was not going to be what our community wanted to hear. Still, it was the only feasible way to find solutions to our infrastructure needs. We had hoped that by being transparent, open, and honest about the challenges that face our district we could move from frustration to understanding and support of this plan. The fact is, schools in Kentucky have been underfunded by a broken system for decades. The funding formula has not kept pace with the rising cost of maintaining buildings and delivering the kind of education that our students deserve. In fact, a student-led group has just filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth over these concerns. Part of that system includes the ability of our Board of Education to adopt a nickel tax that would support the building fund. Additional support to that building fund is necessary to move beyond the status quo of simply managing issues that arise to a more proactive approach. We had hoped to remedy the district-wide broken and aging HVAC systems, leaking roofs and plumbing issues while still supporting our goals of offering a competitive salary schedule, improving safety and perhaps our athletic facilities. 

Webster County’s tax rate is currently significantly lower than that of all but one of our surrounding counties. A fact that would remain even with the adoption of this tax. Similarly, our district spends about $1000 less per student than all but one of our surrounding counties. This recall leaves more than one million dollars of revenue annually out of reach for our district and an additional 17.3 million in bonding capacity. $708,000 of that revenue would have come from the state funded by our state tax dollars. Despite these facts, we could not get our message across in a way that resonated with our community, and it failed to combat the false and misleading information circulating. Only eleven members of our community attended one of our informational “roadshow” meetings, where we discussed the needs of our district and the powerful impact this would have on our district. The bottom line is that without the support of our community on this front, we could not proceed. As the Superintendent I own the fact that we were not able to create a strong enough coalition of supporters to succeed but all is not lost and we have plans to continue to meet our needs. 

So, what does this mean for the future of our district? The short answer is that we will face some difficult decisions for the foreseeable future. The most common concerns I hear from our community come in three areas; facilities (particularly athletic), transportation, and teacher pay. It will be significantly more difficult to address these issues as we had hoped without this revenue. An increase in the building fund would have given us room in the budget to address these important issues more effectively while ensuring we remedy leaking roofs and failing HVAC systems.

The fact remains that this work will still have to be done and I want to be crystal clear on this point: the Board of Education and I are as committed today as we have always been to providing the best opportunities and experiences for our students and staff. It may take longer than we intended and cost more in the long run, but we believe that our students and staff deserve the best environments in which to learn and work, and we will continue to find ways to ensure this work gets done. To do this, we have created a plan that will focus more on these infrastructure needs. We have created a committee that prioritizes our most significant and pressing needs but tough choices will need to be made. Further, we will continue to seek out and win grants to support our curriculum and instruction needs to provide the resources needed for the world we and our students live in. 

I would like to thank the Board of Education and those who helped spearhead this effort to better support our schools. Also, thanks to those in our Webster County Schools community who supported this and rallied to the cause. Our work is not over. To our teachers, we will continue supporting you to the best of our ability in every way through resources, professional learning, financial compensation and working conditions. To our students, we will continue to provide you with every available opportunity to ensure your success while improving your learning environment. These ideals bring educators into our profession. It is our mission and we will make sure to foster the best learning environments we can.