Kaiser settlement will aid schools
When Kaiser Aluminum Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2002, East Valley School District was hit hard.
The school district not only lost the revenue from Kaiser Corp.’s property taxes, but Kaiser’s Trentwood factory employees and their children moved out of the district. School districts receive state funds based on their enrollment numbers and East Valley’s enrollment dropped by 100 students each year.
As a result, school programs were cut and employees from every department in the district lost their jobs.
“We’ve just been really lean, extremely lean. Since 2002, every single department in this district took huge cuts. We’ve been able to uphold our contractual obligations to both our PSC (classified workers such as bus drivers, cooks, secretaries) workers and our teachers union and that’s been tough sometimes,” said Christine Burgess, district superintendent.
Spokane County commissioners approved a bankruptcy settlement agreement Thursday that calls for Kaiser Corp. to pay more than $2.4 million in back property taxes to the county.
Most of this money will go to schools and other local government services.
East Valley School District will receive approximately $800,000.
District patrons will benefit from a lower bond tax rate, but district officials aren’t exactly dancing in the streets.
“We know they’re going to be lining up at the door and I don’t want people to think that we have $800,000. We cannot touch $295,842 of that, which goes into the debt service fund. They don’t even give us that check, it just goes to the treasurer’s office,” said Burgess.
The debt service fund amount is a required payment to pay back money for remaining bond levies.
When Kaiser didn’t pay its taxes the whole community made up for it by paying at a higher rate, said Burgess.
As a result of this $295,842 debit service payment the bond levy rate will be lower in 2007. The current rate is about $1.95 per $1,000 of assessed property value, and it will go down to about $1.75 per $1,000 for one year.
If East Valley residents experience the same increase in property values as the rest of the county, the tax rate could go down much further to an estimated $1.45 per $1,000 level in 2008.
The remaining $522,000 from the bankruptcy settlement will be put in the district’s general fund this month.
Burgess said that during the last four years the district has had to cut corners. Programs such as counseling for elementary students were cut. Maintenance projects were put on hold.
Decisions about what to do with the money will be made with input from staff, the teachers union, administration and the school board, which approves the budget.
“The money will help get us caught up somewhat. We have a list of priorities that we want to look at, but we have to be careful not to get dazzled by this money. We have to be pretty frugal with it,” said Burgess.