Schools

Bayless Sees Hope in Tax Levy Approval

The Prop B increase will bring much-needed funds to the cash-strapped district.

With a solid 58 percent of the vote, Bayless School District residents approved the , which the district promises will bring back busses and help stave off cuts to classroom programs.

948 people voted ‘yes,’ and 686 voted ‘no.’

“We are very, very thrilled that Prop B passed. We wanted to make sure that our parents and community members knew what the passage would mean for the education of our kids, but also if it didn’t pass what it would mean,” incoming superintendent and current assistant super Ron Tucker told Patch Tuesday night.

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Prop B’s passage will increase taxes in for Bayless residents to $4.22 and bring an estimated $1,288,000 into district coffers, to be realized for the 2012-2013 school year.

“Had it not passed, we were going to be looking at reductions that would have really jeopardized the kind of instruction we are going to provide our kids,” Tucker said.

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Tucker said that along with shoring up the district’s troubled operating finances, the new funds would be spent to bring back bus transportation to the district and provide teachers with a cost of living pay increase, which they have gone without for several years now.

However he also cautioned that the tax hike will not mean that will disappear.

“This is not going to make Bayless a wealthy school district. We are going to have to make judicious decisions,” Tucker said, adding that the loss of 150 students from district enrollment over the past two years will mean some personnel cuts. “We are still going to have to make sure that in terms of faculty and staff, our staffing is appropriate. Even though Prop B passed, we are committed to make certain that our district is the right size to reflect current enrollment.”

Still, Prop B does put the district on the road to fiscal recovery, partly by allowing the district to take full advantage of state funding.

“We are going to exceed the state adequacy targets, which means we will receive some revenue which we have not received for the past few years,” Tucker said. “It’s going to maximize the funding formula.”

To get Prop B passed, a number of parents and community members took up the district’s cause, volunteering to work polls and to get out information about the district’s dire finances.

“It was a team effort,” organizer Mike Hawkins said. “We had some tremendous volunteers out there that were really plugging.”

“I put a pretty simple quote up on Facebook: basically tomorrow this is going to be a little brighter place,” Hawkins added. “The district has faced a lot of setbacks with the economy… This brought the good news we needed.”

Bayless supporters campaigning outside polling places said the mood of voters was very positive.

“We had guarded optimism, but we saw many people coming out saying they support education and they support the school district,” Tucker said. “We are very excited for the outcome this evening, but with it comes a responsibility for us to be very wise with how we proceed with this additional funding.”


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