SUN Staff Report
6/4/09
Dulce School District voters passed the same tax increase Tuesday that they passed a year ago by a vote of 102 to 74, according to unofficial results released by the Rio Arriba County clerk’s office.
The two mil levy imposes a tax of $2 per $1,000 of assessed taxable property within the District from 2009 through 2014.
The tax money would cover construction of a new high school and teacher housing units, as well as janitorial service and training costs, and the purchase of computers for new online learning programs, Superintendent Ralph Friedly said.
The new tax would not create a net increase in property taxes, Friedly and District Assistant Superintendent Ricardo Sanchez said.
“We passed a mil levy HB33 last year,” Sanchez said Tuesday evening. “HB33 was just for construction costs but we’d been told there was flexibility there but there wasn’t. We subcontract our maintenance and custodial using that money. So we’re moving two mils from HB33 to this new (tax), to give us more flexibility. This has already been passed, that’s what people don’t understand. We’re just asking to move it to give flexibility to use for operating and maintenance costs rather than just construction.”
Allowing property tax revenues to go to operating expenses as well as construction projects will would leave more of the District’s budget available to pay teachers and staff, Friedly said.
“If we’re not able to do that, it would probably result in teaching staff cuts,” Friedly said. “We’d have to pay maintenance and custodial from our general operating budget.”
Most of the taxable property in the District — 99.7 percent — is owned by the oil and gas industry, Friedly said. Many residents in the District also live on the Jicarilla Apache Nation, which is exempt from property taxes.