by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington school board members approved the 2013-14 school budget in a hearing that was as bizarre as any hearing out there Monday night at the school administrative office.

With just four of the seven members present, the board voted 4-0 to approve the 2013-14 budget that will include $20.38 million in expenditures for which $8.78 million will come from local resources and transfers. The school district is budgeting $3.92 million revenue from property taxpayers.

To raise that amount, the school will levy 63.37 mills – an increase of .9 mills for the USD 353 taxpayers from the previous year. Thus, people owning a residential home in the USD 353 school district with an appraised value of $100,000 will be taxed $728.75 in 2014, compared to $718.64 in 2013 in school taxes alone. 

The mill levy will include 20 mills mandated from the Kansas State legislature, 25.72 mills in the local option budget, 12.62 mills in bond and interest and 5 mills from capital outlay. The mill levy in 2012 was 62.47 mills. Each mill is one dollar per $1,000 dollars of assessed value.

Keep in mind, this will only affect the school portion of a taxpayers bill. Other tax entities like the city of Wellington and Sumner County are not included for this article. The city of Wellington will be approving its budget next Tuesday.

Wellington Superintendent Rick Weiss cited less state aid and increasing school costs as the reason for the .9 mill increase. The .9 mill increase will raise a projected $63,361 for the school district.

“The pro rated amount of state aid should be 78 percent of the budget,” Weiss said. “The actual amount during the 2012-13 fiscal year will be much less. This burden thus falls on the local taxpayers for which most of the legislators supporting this policy are. Perhaps, they should actually think this out instead of doing what they are told.”

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The bizarre hearing

The board voted twice in a public hearing that lasted 90 minutes. Normally a budget hearing for a tax entity is basically a formality lasting less than 30 minutes.

Not this one. New board member Jason Newberry initially voted against the budget, citing he did not want the USD 353 to increase the budget by .9 mills. And since the board only had three favorable votes, it did not constitute a majority of the seven-member board, and the motion failed.

Thus, for about an hour the board was locked in a stalemate and in a quandary about what to do with the budget.

The unusual problem could be traced before the tap of the gavel to open the hearing. Three members were absent Monday: Bob White, Angie Ratcliff and Larry Mangan. The board was barely at quorum with Jackie Berryman, Carol Hadorn, David Peck and Newberry in attendance.

After the budget was discussed, Berryman called for a vote with three voting “aye.” Newberry, though, voted against the budget.

“I just have some heartburn raising the mill levy during these financially troubled times we are in,” Newberry said. “I think if we raise the mill levy now it will be awfully hard to get the mill levy back down.”

He proposed looking at a way to make cuts to bring the mill levy equivalent to the one last year.

Peck, on the other hand, said he will not sacrifice the education of the students, and would not vote to change the budget proposed by Weiss in order to take $63,361 out of the budget.

The board was now at impasse. And for the next hour discussed alternatives in order to solve the problem.

The first thought was to bring in a board member who was not there and see if they could garner another vote to get the budget passed.

“That wouldn’t offend me at all if you did that,” Newberry said.

But that didn’t prove successful in that none of the absentee board members were able to be contacted.

Then the board members discussed submitting another budget. But that would pose a logistic impossibility. In order for a budget to be legal it must be published in the legal newspaper a specific number of times. The legal publication is the Wellington Daily News. However, the publication had already been published this week and wouldn’t have another one until next week.

The board would not be able to submit a budget to the state before the Aug. 25 deadline.

So thus, the board, started to look at ways to cut the budget at the meeting. It can make changes as long as it doesn’t increase the budget, Weiss said.

That proved to be quite an undertaking. Weiss said the only place to take it out of was the Local Option Budget. Throughout the meeting even before the vote was taken, Weiss emphasized that assistant Superintendent Larry Roth had done some creative accounting to make budget and there was no place to cut without directly affecting the students.

The suggestions were abundant. At one point Berryman said the board could cut athletics to reduce one mill levy. Weiss responded that cutting $63,361 out of supplemental contracts would pretty much end all athletics and other extra curricular activities in Wellington. Berryman said it would hurt the school in that it would cause students to drop out thus leaving the school in more of a financial bind.

There was discussion of cutting the mills with the rec. But that would only affect rec projects and have no affect on the budget of the school.

“What would you like us to do away with Jason?” Berryman asked.

“I wish I knew, I’m new to the game, so I apologize,” Newberry said who got on the board in July. “I’ll be honest with you I don’t know where you can make the cuts. But I don’t like the fact we are raising the mill levy.”

Roth said he knew what Newberry was saying but the trend in Topeka is making it worse and putting the burden on the local taxpayers. Thus the problem with raising the mill levy exists.

Finally, after more discussion, Newberry asked Roth for a line-by-line explanation with the LOB expenditures. Roth did so and eventually Newberry said he was satisfied with these explanations. He changed his vote and the second time the motion passed 4-0.