At a meeting last Tuesday, the ISD 2142 school board preliminarily leaned toward an operating referendum proposal that would bring the district about $5,907,936 annually, plus a $1.5 million capital projects levy.
The board will finalize ballot language and referendum figures at an August 11 meeting, which is the last day they may certify the two proposed levies prior to the 2026 elections.
An operating referendum at that value would mean a $76 tax increase for a property valued at $100,000, plus an additional $18 per year to cover the capital project levy.
Such a referendum would provide the district a $3,040 per-pupil allowance beginning in the 2027-2028 school year, with $3,227,209 of revenue from local taxpayers and $2,680,727 from state aid.
Without a voter-approved referendum, the district could not tap into Seasonal Recreation Property Tax Base Replacement Aid (STBRA) funds.
STBRA allows districts with high proportions of seasonal recreation properties to reclaim tax money that previously went to the state from those properties and never returned to the local district.
“We do not have access to that money if it fails. It’s gone,” said district finance director Kim Johnson. “I know the legislators worked pretty darn hard getting that passed this year.”
If voters approve the new referendum, the school board would remove the $1,407,022 board-approved operating levy currently in place, easing the tax burden that a new referendum would bring. Board-approved levies are not eligible for state aid.
“What we would do is under- levy and increase a voter- approved operating ref- erendum, assuming it passes,” Johnson said. “What that does is it maximizes the amount of state aid that comes with your operating referendum, and it reduces the amount that taxpayers have to pay.”
“It’s a win-win on both sides,” Johnson said.
A capital projects levy (CPL) could help pull the district out of statutory operating debt (SOD) by funding infrastructure that would otherwise pull from the district’s pool of unassigned funds.
SOD means a district’s net-negative unassigned fund balance is greater than 2.5% of that fiscal year’s unassigned fund expenditures.
The $1.5 million CPL would finance transportation, software, athletic uniforms and more.
“Basically this is a way that we can free up unassigned funds by moving costs to operating capital, and operating capital is an assigned fund balance,” Johnson said.
Seasonal recreational property owners would be required to pay on the capital projects levy, though they would not have a vote on the proposal.
“That’s one of the reasons I want to go with a capital projects levy and an operating referendum,” Johnson said. “It spreads the tax impact out over a larger tax base.”
ISD 2142’s debt service is expected to drop $1 million in 2029, followed by an additional $3.4 million in 2031 — good news for taxpayers.
Following those reductions, Johnson said the district could consider adding a board-approved levy again to keep the district’s revenue steady.
Despite the opportunity for new revenue, the district will still seek to cut internal costs — especially rising health insurance expenses.
“We get control over that, and I think we’ll be sitting very, very well,” Johnson said.
If the voter-approved operating referendum passes, it would be the district’s first in 23 years or more, as far back as records reach. This is despite three referendum attempts prior to the passage of a school bond in 2009.
“We’ve operated and we’ve kept costs reasonable. At the same time, inflationary costs have been coming and coming and coming,” said vice chair Chris Koivisto of Northeast Range.
“We’ve gone for a long stretch. This is one ask in 20-some years, and I think it would really help the school out to make sure we stay open at these locations,” Koivisto said.
