Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
School district expected to levy fewer mills in 2025 to compensate
The New Rockford-Sheyenne School District has been inadvertently collecting too much tax revenue from district residents.
At their regular meeting on Monday, July 15, school board members heard from Business Manager Dave Skogen about the issue, who said the district has been slightly “over-milling” for their Debt Service Fund.
Every year the district collects a certain amount of taxes to go toward their Debt Service Fund, which pays for the school’s annual bond payment from a successful 2017 bond referendum.
Tax revenue for the Debt Service Fund is for the express purpose of paying that bond and nothing else, meaning the district shouldn’t be collecting more tax revenue than is necessary to make their annual bond payment.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 and FY 2024, the school’s bond payment was exactly $194,876.06, yet the amount of taxes levied to pay for that bill was $222,900.52 in FY 2023 and $225,584.60 in FY 2024.
School districts are allowed to levy up to 10 percent more than their annual bond payment to provide a cushion in case of late or unpaid taxes. But taking that 10 percent cushion into account, Skogen said NR-S still collected $8,150.46 too much in FY 2023, and $10,834.54 too much in FY 2024.
That combines for a total of $18,985 in tax revenue collected over and above what the district should have, despite the school not increasing the number of mills levied for the debt service fund.
The school district has levied exactly 13.64 mills for their debt service fund since 2020, so that hasn’t changed.
What has changed, however, are property values. As property values have gone up over the years, the amount of money the district receives per mill has increased.
In retrospect, Skogen said the district should have been slightly decreasing the number of mills levied each year to account for the increment rise in property values.
Skogen also said that he first noticed something might be amiss after the rise in property valuations became clear in 2023. At that time he reached out to the Eddy County Auditor and N.D. School Board Association, who both assured him that the school’s mill amount was appropriate.
Upon seeing the increased property values yet again for FY 2024, Skogen reached out to the school’s auditor, Widmer Roel, who looked into it and determined that NR-S had indeed been over-milling.
To remedy the situation, Skogen said the number of mills levied for the Debt Service Fund in FY 2025 will go down, accounting for the extra tax revenue collected the previous two years.
In other words, to make up for paying too much in 2023 and 2024, property owners in the district will not have to pay as much this coming school year, and the district will bring in less tax revenue than necessary to pay their bond payment, knowing they have tax dollars available from previous years.
Beyond FY 2025, Skogen said the district will only levy enough mills to make their bond payment plus a cushion of 5 percent, and will adjust the number of mills down each year as necessary until the bond is paid off.
Also at the regular school board meeting on Monday, the board welcomed both of their new members, Leann Drake and Matt Pfeiffer.
Members also decided to re-elect Todd Allmaras as the board’s president, and Mike Schaefer as the board’s vice president.
The board got through a number of regular business items throughout their meeting, and concluded with a first and final reading of a change to Policy GCBB regarding the reporting to parents of their children’s progression.
The change is to notify parents of failing or unsatisfactory grades at the mid-term of each semester, rather than every quarter. There will also be semester report cards instead of quarterly ones.
The school board’s next regular meeting will be Monday, Aug. 12 at 7 p.m.
