CHAFFEE VOTERS REJECT TAX LEVY HIKE

BENTON -- Chaffee voters resoundingly rejected an operating tax levy the public schools were seeking to offset decreased state funding.

The vote was 148 for and 400 against the levy, which would have added 85 cents to the current levy of $2.81 per $100 assessed valuation. Also in Scott County, Commerce voters decided a $100,000 sewer bond question. The community was seeking to issue bonds to pay for a sewer construction project. The bonds will be paid by operating fees for the sewer system. The measure passed by a vote of 30-12."There is no good news in Chaffee tonight," Superintendent Bob Biggs said in the wake of Tuesday's vote.

Biggs said a tax levy was needed because enrollment in the Chaffee schools has dropped from 704 students to 574 students in the past five years, which amounts to a loss of more than half a million dollars in state aid annually. To compensate for the failure of the tax levy, Biggs said the schools will have to contemplate a reduction of 10 to 12 certified staff members by the end of the school year, this in a district with a certified staff of only 54. He said he expects to ask the school board to put the issue back on the ballot by February, perhaps at the lower rate. "If we can get a lesser tax levy (in the spring), maybe we will have to decrease staff only by five or six people," Biggs said.

The impact on the teachers in such a scenario is bad enough, he said, "though they will land somewhere. But some kids will have to be shortchanged."Biggs is at a loss to explain why the district's enrollment has decreased so dramatically.

He also was surprised at the large number of no votes and the small number of yes votes. "We didn't do a good job of getting out the yes vote, or the yes vote wasn't there," he said.