The Cole County R-5 School District in Eugene is asking voters to eliminate a partial rollback waiver so the schools can receive the full property tax amount.
The Proposition C Rollback Waiver will be on the ballot April 7.
The elimination of the waiver would not change anyone's assessed valuation on property taxes; it just gives the school the full amount of tax money that can be theirs.
Eliminating the rollback is estimated to increase the school district's operating levy by 0.3515 per $100 of assessed valuation for the 2020 tax year. The amount is currently $3.0337.
This extra money would be used for teacher salaries, instructional needs such as technology, and other updates for the schools, Superintendent Dawna Burrow said.
In 1982, Proposition C was put into place as a 1-cent statewide sales tax to better fund school districts. This sales tax required districts to "roll back" operating levies to keep property taxes low. They allowed a portion of what was to go to schools to go to taxpayers. Half the revenue collected from the Proposition C tax was intended to roll back or reduce property taxes.
By the 1990s, most Missouri schools requested to waive the "rollback" requirement because Missouri was not fully funding public education. Ninety-three percent of Missouri's public school districts have waived the rollback requirement so that all the money from Proposition C is used to operate the schools. Seven percent do not have a waiver and can use only half of that money for operations.
More information will be included in the Eugene School District newsletter at the end of the month.