JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI COUNTY, MARQUAND OK ISSUES: SCHOOL LEVY HIKE

MARQUAND -- Voters in the financially distressed Marquand-Zion School District in Madison County voted to raise their property taxes by 30 cents per $100 assessed valuation Tuesday.

"That shows they want our school district to keep going," Randy Williams, president of the Marquand-Zion Board of Education, said after he heard the results.

The new tax rate will be $3.05 per $100 assessed valuation.

With 132 votes for and 90 against, the tax hike received 59.4 percent approval, well over the simple majority it needed to pass. Technically, the basic tax rate remains the same, but voters eliminated 30 cents of the rollback from the Proposition C rollback.

Voters there defeated similar tax levies in April and last August.

Williams attributed passage to hard work from teachers, parents and board members who got the word out.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education listed the district as financially distressed because it finished its fiscal year with a negative balance of $8,000. The district had to withhold several checks to keep the district afloat, Williams said.

Because the state listed the district as financially distressed, had the increase failed, the board could have voted to increase the taxes anyway. But that would have meant the state would prohibit the district from raising salaries or increasing administrative costs until it built up a 3 percent reserve fund.