April 10, 2011 in City

District says group’s flier exaggerates levy request

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Along with a ballot, residents of the Orchard Prairie School District may have found a bright yellow flier in their mailboxes recently urging them to vote “no” on an upcoming school levy.

The fliers were sent out by Citizens for Responsible Taxation, an anti-tax group made up of John Beal, Marilyn Montgomery and former Alton’s Tires owner Duane Alton.

The Orchard Prairie flier warns that a “sneak election” is coming and urges residents within the district to reject the levy. The fliers say property taxes would increase by $2,490 for a home valued at $100,000 if voters approve the levy.

District officials say the group’s calculations are incorrect.

“The fact that it has grossly incorrect figures really disturbs me,” said Dan Cutler, a school board member. “I don’t mind people sending out fliers saying to vote no, but to send it out with false figures in it is really unethical.”

The K-7 school, located north of Spokane Valley, serves 60 to 80 students a year. In the April 26 election, district officials are asking voters to approve a $105,000 maintenance and operation levy for two years to help fill budget gaps left by state funding and replace an expiring levy.

If passed, it would cost homeowners about $1.25 per $1,000 of assessed home value in 2012 and $1.24 per $1,000 in 2013. For a home valued at $100,000, the property tax increase would be a two-year total of $249, one-tenth the figure shown on the fliers.

If the replacement levy fails, “we wouldn’t be able to support the teachers that we have,” Cutler said. “Also, you have to have a levy to qualify for matching funds from the (state) government.”

The fliers call the levy a “new tax” and say the district is proposing “more taxes.”

However, Lorna St. John, a school board member, said, “It’s not new taxes. It’s asking for the same levy amount we have been getting.”

Supporters fear the misinformation could scare voters into rejecting the levy, St. John said.

“It certainly bothers me that they’re telling voters something that isn’t true about how much we’re asking for,” she said. “I’m not sure how they formulated that, but it’s intended to frighten; it’s intended to confuse. The language is very inflammatory.”

“They have their own agenda and their agenda is to stop taxation of every kind,” she said.

The anti-tax group has campaigned against several other school bonds and levies, including in Spokane, Central Valley and West Valley school districts in 2003, and against bonds in the Central Valley and Mead school districts earlier this year.

The trio also sent fliers in opposition to the $33.75 million East Valley School District renovation bond that will appear on the April 26 ballot. If voters approve the bond, it will cost about 86 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value for 20 years, or $86 a year on a home valued at $100,000.

None of the three members of the anti-tax group lives in the Orchard Prairie School District, according to addresses they gave the state when they registered as a political committee opposing the Mead and Central Valley districts’ bonds.

It is unclear whether they accidentally made the error on the fliers or intentionally increased the figures. Beal and Montgomery did not return calls for comment Saturday.

St. John exchanged emails with the group, and she said they stand by their calculations.

“I have no idea where they’re coming from,” she said. “But they say their formula is right. Even if they admitted it, it’s no good to me. They’ve done their damage already.”

Six comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  ChefGus/ John Olsen on April 10 at 4:04 a.m.

  This same group of people have their mailing address on the south side and lobbied with lies on their very fancy high end flyers that came to our house in the Mead District.
  “Good Christian” folks with no moral compass me thinks. John

• 

  reservedparking on April 10 at 10:46 a.m.

  And John, if it’s the S. Regal address they used last fall - it’s a UPS Store mailbox center. Yet another layer of hiding where their true intent lies.

• 

  greenlibertarian on April 10 at 10:48 a.m.

  Alton’s group are notorious lying liars.

• 

  mcjjensen on April 11 at 5:01 a.m.

  If it is true that, “all politics are local”, then there is nothing more local than school bonds and levies. Let those that reside decide. If Mr. Alton can put up over $30,000 to defeat local school district bonds and levies the least he could do make sure of the facts. Orchard Prairie School District is trying to pass a replacement M&O Levy. It is not a new tax. What they are asking their voters to do is supplant the state’s inadequate funding of basic education with local dollars.
  East Valley is asking local voters to pay 51% of the cost to fix and renovate deteriorating schools where the infrastructure itself, not the cosmetics, is at issue. The other 49% of the cost will be made up from state matching funds that if they don’t come to East Valley then they will go somewhere else. Those who live outside the East Valley School District will see absolutely no increase, and those of us who do will still pay less money for the schools than the vast majority of our neighboring districts.
  Please, do your homework, and like I wrote earlier…
  LET THOSE WHO RESIDE DECIDE.

• 

  flyerd1 on February 02 at 4:32 a.m.

  1. Irt it not being a new tax:
  Anything with an end date (like a “3yr” levy tax or a mortgage) has to have a “new” one started in order to “remain” in place so it’s perfectly accurate to say it’s a new tax. What if, after paying off your mortgage, the bank said “we don’t want you to pay a new mortgage, we’d just like you to pay on this replacement mortgage” for another mortgage term…? How would that go over?

  2. Actual levy rates and Levy Equalization Funds (LEF):
  The levy rate most often used by school districts is the smaller, LEF assisted one. However, with our current economy, this is a time when LEF funds could go away and people should plan accordingly (plan worst case scenario). That would cause the amount taken by this levy to be approximately 22% more than the school dist claims.

  3. Irt A) It being 28% (mead) of their budget & B) What the levy $ is or is not used for:
  A levy is meant to be a one time fill-gap revenue stream that may be necessary once every 10-20 yrs. It’s “NOT” meant to be a “constant” revenue stream… It shows incredibly bad district leadership when they’ve gotten to the point of expecting levies as a never ending part of their budget.

  It’s extremely disingenuous to say the money “is not” used for new buildings, repairs, pensions, etc. That’s a simple “shell game”. It’s like having a monthly budget (including $100 each for phone, power, alcohol, and gas) and saying “gee mom, I don’t have enough money to cover all my monthly bills; If you give me $100 I can pay my pwr bill”. There’s no way to realistically seperate that $100 out and stipulate it’s actually being used to pay “the pwr bill” as opposed to the gas, phone, alcohol, etc. budget items. Similarly, there is “no way to realistically separate” levy money such that it can be considered a “completely separate” (from all other budget items) funding amount. The exact part of the budget that the school dist “chooses to say” the levy money pays for is simply a matter of which shell they choose to say it goes towards… Again, its a simple shell game of distortions to say “a specific revenue stream” of any budget is only going to used “for select items” of that overall budget.

  4. Despite how this may sound, I’m completely for education funding via a fair and equitable method. A much more equitable method of requesting additional funding would be to request it via a sales tax increase (whatever fraction of a penny required). That way, “everyone” casting a vote would actually be voting to increase “their own taxes” as well as other people’s taxes. If it’s going to be a property tax then either A) only property owners should have the levy on their ballots or B) it should be a supermajority vote. Right now many people vote who don’t even pay property taxes… Otherwise this type of a levy tax should require a super majority in order to be considered more of a fair vote (#5 below).

  A cost cutting, as opposed to revenue generating, method of addressing the education budgets would be to address the underfunded TERS1 pensions and work to modify those pensions via negotiations and constitutional changes. The state already acknowledged that TERS1 (stopped in 1977) was unsustainable and a responsible re-negotiation could be done without undue harm to current pension beneficiaries. All other post TERS1 plans should be transitioned to 401K plans. Additionally, cost structures should be reviewed and compared to the charter schools that currently operate for less money while achieving better scholastic success rates.

  See 5. below…

• 

  flyerd1 on February 02 at 4:33 a.m.

  5. If it was a super majority vote this would at least be a fair vote. A super majority vote is necessary anytime you allow a subset group of people to vote on a matter that could be beneficial to them and that they are “not” directly impacted by (in a financially impacting way, i.e. they pay for it). For example (using property ownership rates of 60%), if 65% of “non-property owners” vote “YES”, a levy like this could pass with only 40% of property owners voting for it (even though the property owners pay it).

  If Washington was having a vote to increase the sales tax by 2% you wouldn’t want people from Idaho to be allowed to vote because, as stated above, they would be a subset of voters that don’t have to pay for the tax but could actually benefit as their sales went up due to people going into Idaho to avoid the 2% increase.

  The counter point of “renters pay these fees via rent” is ridiculous because only in a perfect system would this be the case. In actuality, landlords can only charge what the market will bear. Meaning, if a landlord can’t get a renter at a price that covers the levy costs he/she has to lower the rent in order to simply rent the unit out…