The Legislature gave us an increase of 1.88 percent. In the high school district, we can get by without a levy. Please remind people that the school district is asking for a 1 percent budget increase when inflation is somewhere around 2.5 percent. Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. Last year voters approved our levy request, but because we got additional funding from the Legislature by way of the Special Session, we didn't actually levy all the voters had approved.
Taxes didn t go up last year as a result.
The problem is that voters will feel that increase for the first time this year. I am hoping that people don t vote against the levy this year because we didn t tax them last year. In either case, I am soliciting your help in explaining that this is a very fiscally prudent district. Remind people that we actually reduced taxes last year and that our high school district is the third lowest spending high school district in the state. Of the 110 high school districts, we rank 107 with only Miles City, Havre, and Belgrade spending less than Great Falls.