DELTA SCHOOL DISTRICT TO SEEK 61-CENT TAX LEVY HIKE

DELTA -- The Delta R-V School District has trimmed its budget and is asking voters to approve a 61-cent tax increase in an effort to keep the school system operating.

Superintendent Larry Beshears said voters will decide April 7 about the tax increase issue. The levy requires a simple majority to pass.

Taking into account the state's Proposition C rollback, Beshears estimated the tax increase would generate about $65,000 in additional money for the district.

Money from the tax increase would be used for two major repairs: reroofing the elementary and high school buildings and replacing the heating system at the elementary building with a heating and air-conditioning system.

Beshears, along with members of the planning committee and the board of education, will meet with the public at five meetings between now and the election to discuss the increase and answer questions.

The first meeting is at 7 tonight at the Allenville Baptist Church.

Other meetings are planned Tuesday at the Randols General Baptist Church at 7 p.m.; March 31 at the Delta High School band room at 7 p.m.; April 2 at the Delta senior citizens' weekly meeting at 11 a.m.; and April 2 at Whitewater United Methodist Church at 7 p.m.

In addition to asking voters for more money, the Delta Board of Education has cut $40,000 from the school budget. The biggest cut is the elimination of one elementary teacher, at a savings of about $20,000.

The board has also restricted the number of athletic games played, probably eliminating one home game and one away game from each sport.

A part-time secretary will no longer be employed. The district is raising gym rental fees and admission charges and considering charging a fee for students enrolled in shop classes; $1,000 will be eliminated from the superintendent's budget; custodial staff will no longer receive uniform allowances and the gym floor will be refinished every other year instead of every year.

The district rebid its building insurance for a savings of $8,000.

Beshears said regardless of whether the tax increase passes, some of the cuts will stand. He said the board would like to reinstate the teaching position.

The tax increase proposal was developed by a citizens' group that met over the school year to determine facility needs for the district. The group looked at various possibilities, including constructing new buildings.

The committee determined that the more prudent approach was to fix the existing buildings.

Beshears said: "There are certain things that just have to be done if the district really wants to maintain its schools. We can wait until a crisis comes and we have to make the repairs, or we can make a plan to deal with the problems."

Beshears said the repairs are long overdue. "Some of these things should have been done in the past, but the district was not financially able to do them."

Beshears said the heating system and the elementary roof are both 34 years.

The heating system has pipes under the concrete floors. Those pipes are beginning to rust, to develop holes and to leak, he said.

"You have to find the leak and dig through the concrete floor to make repairs," he said.

About 30 cents of the levy increase is needed for those repairs. The balance of the increase would be used to keep the school operating, Beshears said.

"Hopefully we can upgrade our textbooks, buy additional supplies. We need a new copy machine, a new dishwasher at the elementary school and a sound system in the auditorium."

While the primary reason for the tax increase is capital improvements, Beshears said money could also be used to increase teachers' salaries.

Teachers in the district did not receive a raise this year and salaries are frozen for the coming year.

The highest-paid teacher in the district, with a masters degree and 20 years of teaching experience, earns $21,590. Beginning teachers earn the state minimum of $18,000.

In 1989 Delta voters approved a 63-cent tax increase.

"At the time they voted that increase they were told it would not be the answer and that we would be back in a few years," Beshears said.

"In 1989 the district was on the verge of bankruptcy," he explained.

Since that time the school district has purchased three buses, copy machines, computers, and a burglar-alarm system.

"But the biggest thing we have done is build some reserve. Our incidental fund is now over $100,000," Beshears said. "No one wants their bank account to be a zero, and that's where we were in 1989."

He said, one emergency replacing the roof or the heating system would drain the savings account.