Sean C. Morgan
School District 55 officials will look into using a local option levy to fund the Sweet Home swimming pool operations until voters can decide on whether to approve the formation of an aquatics district with a permanent tax rate.
School district officials met with city officials Thursday evening, Sept. 29, to discuss the proposed aquatics district.
The biggest hurdle the proposed district would pose appears to be that it would cause an estimated loss of $57,000 in revenue to the Sweet Home Police Department local option levy and another $5,600 to the library local option levy. It would cause a loss of about $27,000 in revenue to the Linn County Law levy, also a local option levy. The City Council must adopt a resolution before the district could be placed on the ballot.
“Due to compression, there is a substantial amount of money the city would lose,” said School Board Chairman Jason Redick. Before it can go on the ballot, the city has to agree to send it to the ballot. The Thursday evening meeting was an opportunity to talk about everyone’s concerns and maybe find a solution.
The District 55 School Board cut funding to the pool this year as part of budget reductions. Donations from Safeway, the Siletz Tribe and individuals, along with some funds from the city have helped keep the pool operating for the Sweet Home Swim Club, water polo, swim team and some public swim times this year. The aquatics director also ended up taking lifeguard pay.
The district has been dealing with drastic cuts since 2009, Redick said. As part of those, the board has looked everywhere, using one-time reserves to cover some of the cuts to keep the cuts away from classrooms. Now those sources are running out.
The district has paid about $250,000 per year for the pool, which it had funded for 60 years, Redick said. That amount is what the district pays for nearly five teachers, and the board decided it could no longer fund the pool.
As a solution, the district has looked at a couple of options, including a local option levy through the School District and forming a special district.
“Part of this is just giving the voters a chance to decide on whether they want a pool or not,” said district Business Manager Kevin Strong.
“For me, it’s about getting the voters to weigh in on it,” Redick said.
A local option levy through the School District would impose a temporary tax on all property within the district. The problem with using this to fund pool operations is “compression.”
Taxes are calculated based on “assessed property values.” In education tax districts, property taxes are limited to $5 per $1,000 valuation, a decision made by voters in 1990. Once the tax is calculated, it is compared to “real market value” for each property.
If the real market tax rate is higher than $5, the actual tax on the property is reduced until it reaches $5 per $1,000. The taxes are reduced proportionally for all taxing districts under the limit. Local option levies are reduced to zero before the reductions begin affecting permanent tax rates.
For Sweet Home-area residents, School District #55, Linn-Benton Community College and the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Education Service District are slightly more than $5 per $1,000 of assessed value. A local option levy could produce revenue where the imposed tax is less than $5 per $1,000 of real market value.
District officials and aquatics district supporters do not know how much revenue might be available this way, but Strong believes the rate would need to be high to provide the necessary revenue.
The alternative, a special district with a permanent tax rate, would fall under the general government property tax limitation of $10 per $1,000.
Because it would be permanent tax rate, like the city’s tax rate, the county, the cemetery district, the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District and the 4-H Extension Service, it would be reduced only after the two law enforcement levies and the library levy are reduced to zero.
Based on a compression analysis of 2010 property taxes, with a 30-cent tax rate generating $230,000 for the aquatics district, the city would be faced with the reduction of nearly three-quarters of the cost of a police officer, and city Finance Director Pat Gray said the $5,600 loss to the library is a significant loss to library revenue.
The aquatics district committee had been hoping to place the aquatics district on the May ballot, but city officials said that the council would be hard-pressed to make that decision before it had to be submitted this month.
The city is in the midst of binding arbitration with its police employees union, and Police Chief Bob Burford said that if the city loses in arbitration on Oct. 17, he would be looking at having to cut one or two positions on the police force. He said that if a new aquatics district is formed, he could be looking at a reduction of one additional position.
The Police Department is now losing nearly half a million dollars in compression, Burford said. This is another $60,000 on top of that.
“I’m at the breaking point,” Burford said. “If this passes, I’ll have to cut staff.”
“If I’m going to choose between kids and the pool, I’m going to choose kids,” said Mayor Craig Fentiman. It’s the same thing if he is forced to choose between police officers and the pool. He’ll choose police officers.
The city is in a sort of perfect storm regarding this issue, he said. It faces arbitration, the aquatics district question and the overall economy.
He wondered if it wouldn’t be better to pursue a local option levy on the education side and then see about putting the district on the ballot later.
If the School District could pass a local option levy for the pool to operate 2012-13, then it could put the aquatics district on the ballot for November 2012, said City Manager Craig Martin. Revenue from the new district would allow the district to begin operation on July 1, 2013, and the local option levy could fund the service until then.
Redick said he liked Martin’s idea and recognizes the problems Burford is facing with arbitration, along with the problems it presents for meeting the May election deadline.
The local option levy might be a good short-term solution, he said. “I don’t think it’s a great long-term solution. In the end, I think the aquatics district is the best option. It stands on its own.”
In the meantime, a local option levy can serve as a bridge, Redick said. “The timeframe is tight. That has to be a concern. It’s not an easy decision.”
“For the city council – the decision’s yours,” Strong said. If the council won’t adopt a resolution, then the local option levy is likely the next step.
“Obviously, the swimming pool means a lot to a lot of people in this community,” said Bruce Davis, president of the Sweet Home Swim Club. “That goes for me and my family.”
That pool has produced state champions since the 1960s, Davis said. It has produced several all-Americans and paid for college for several people. Davis himself was a Division I swimmer at Kansas. Two Sweet Home High School alumni are currently swimming in college, and Davis’ own daughter is ranked 20th in the nation.
“I think you’re looking at a program that’s done a lot to make a name for this community,” Davis said. “What are we offering as a community to bring people in?”
Right now, the Swim Club draws five members from Brownsville and two from Albany, he said. “We have kids who’ve done in-school transfers to come to Sweet Home because of the swimming program. We’re running out of things to offer people when they’re looking for a community to move to.”
If the pool closes, he said, it’ll take that away as an option; and his family would be in the position of looking to leave Sweet Home. He knows of other families that would also.
“Emotionally, that’s where I’m at right now,” Davis said.
Beyond all of that, said Jodi Seward, whose children were involved in the swim programs, until this year, every child in the district went through swim lessons at some point. Now she is thinking of five years later, when children haven’t had swim lessons.
“We suddenly are going to put kids out in the world without learning to swim,” Seward said. She believes they might be safer in local waters because of those lessons.
“Financially, what is the life of a kid worth that didn’t learn to swim?” she asked.
In the end, with the short timeframe for the City Council to make a decision, the district and aquatics committee officials agreed that the aquatics district vote would need to wait for November 2012 instead of May.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Davis said. “We’re conceding the fact we’re going to go to November.”
In the meantime, the district and aquatics committee need to analyze the numbers using a local option levy, Redick said, and he asked Strong to bring a report to the board at its regular meeting on Oct. 10.