PPEL Defeat A Setback For East Mills

MALVERN - East Mills School District voters have rejected a levy referendum that would have generated $400,000 in new revenue for the school district.
The district had sought a Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) increase of $1.34 per $1,000 of taxable valuation for a 10-year period. The district currently has a 33 cent per $1,000 PPEL in place.

On Tuesday, Sept. 9, voters said no to that increase by a 403-to-345 margin. The referendum required a simple majority to pass.

East Mills had planned to use the new revenue for building infrastructure, technology and transportation needs.

“It would have been nice had it passed, it would have helped the district,” said East Mills Superintendent Paul Croghan. “It would have taken care of some immediate needs and some long-term planning. With it failing, the board and myself will sit down and talk about what we want to do next. What that’s going to look like, I don’t know right now.”

Croghan said it’s hard to put a finger on why the referendum failed to gain traction with voters but he and the board plan to do a canvass of the votes themselves, once they are official.

“We’ll look at making a determination if it was a lack of communication on the district’s part and we’ll analyze why, if there is a reason why (it didn’t pass), and go from there,” Croghan said. “Our needs are still there and the district will do what it needs to do to provide a quality education. We’ll prioritize and look at all the expenditures and revenues coming in and see how we can get things done while providing that quality education. It will take some work. I think the board knows that.”

East Mills School Board Member Susan Stogdill said she was disappointed with the result of the vote.

“The funds are needed and would help our district and our students so we’ll have to go from here and carry on,” Stogdill said.

The board took its first few steps to “carry on” with a work session Monday evening to discuss the PPEL vote and preliminary options for how to proceed. Stogdill said the board will immediately focus on addressing its most pressing need: its aging busing fleet.

“Transportation is the big one, but we are also entering the third year of a four-year contract with our one-to-one laptop program, so that needs to be addressed,” Stogdill said. “And we have some pressing infrastructure needs with the high school roof needing to be replaced.”

Stogdill said the board will consider all financial options, including its current PPEL revenue to address the bus issues.

The East Mills board is likely to pursue another voted PPEL but that decision has yet to be finalized, according to both Stogdill and Croghan. The earliest the district could pursue another PPEL is February, according to the Mills County Auditor’s Office.

Before it’s before voters again, Stogdill would like to see the district and board do a better job answering questions on where the PPEL money will be spent and building trust with district patrons.

“I know there was some public concern they didn’t know what we’d use the money for,” Stogdill said. “The referendum shows what the money can be used for by law but I think there was some distrust among people that we weren’t going to use the money for what we said we were going to use it for. We tried to get out the word and share what our priorities are but I think some people heard other things and unfortunately that’s why (vote failed) this is what happened.”

The board had voted in July to seek the voted PPEL as part of its plan to shutter Chantry Elementary and consolidate the district’s elementary students (pre-K through sixth grade) at Nishna Valley. The district intended to use the additional $400,000 for upgrades to its aging bus fleet and technology and facilities improvements, including repairs to building roofs, heating and air conditioning systems, windows, student security measures and handicap accessibility as part of that plan.

The board decision was a short-term goal it hoped would put the district on track for its long-term goal: a $12 million general obligation bond issue for the construction of a K-12 facility in Malvern.

Last Tuesday’s vote puts that plan into doubt.

“I think the board realizes the long-term planning is going to take some work,” Croghan said. “We have to look at how to get those things done.”
Stogdill said it’s too early for the failure of the PPEL vote to cloud the prospects of the K-12 school general obligation bond, but the board member is concerned.

“I think it’s in the future but I do think it does cause one to sit back and reflect if we have the support needed to continue what we’re trying to do for our kids,” Stogdill said. “It does worry me.”

The PPEL vote is one step in a process, as Croghan sees it.

“This (the PPEL) was the first step in a long term plan,” he said. “It’s still something that needs to be completed and our plan has to be in place to finance something like that. You have to look at the financing to get something like this done. That’s the hardest part about all this, to be very specific when there are still things to be decided long term.”

The vote saw a 31 percent turnout among the district’s 2,379 patrons. Croghan said he was pleased by the voter turnout, but declined to say if he was surprised by the “No” vote, preferring, he said, to stay neutral.

Without the PPEL funds, the district’s need for new revenue remains.
Croghan said it’s his job to work with the board to determine how the district’s needs will be met with its current revenues.

The board has yet to finalize next year’s budget but the process has begun in identifying revenues and expenditures.

“We’ll look at where we are in the revenues, we’ve been in a holding pattern with the PPEL to save as much as we could,” he said. “We dealt with only the things we needed to. We did that all of last year too when we first discussed closing a building. We’ll work on that and get information on where our needs are with our current revenue sources and balances.

“We’re still very conservative with how we finance things and know that we have to set money aside for things we can’t predict. I think to make sure you have contingency plans is good financing.”