\nVoters OK continuing current funding for Duluth schools<\/strong><\/p>\nCity voters agreed Tuesday to continue supporting school operations at current levels but rejected two additional funding requests that would have raised taxes. <\/p>\n
By: Sarah Horner , Duluth News Tribune <\/p>\n
Despite a struggling economy and the Duluth school district\u2019s controversial building plan, city voters agreed Tuesday to continue supporting school operations at current levels but rejected two additional funding requests that would have raised taxes.<\/p>\n
By nearly a 2-to-1 margin, voters agreed to renew the school district\u2019s existing $365 per pupil operating levy, which keeps current money in place for school programs without increasing taxes. But voters weren\u2019t willing to go a step further and increase taxes to support elevated school funding on two additional levy questions, which asked voters to increase school spending to $700 and $1,200 per pupil.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s outcome spares the district from some of the devastating cuts that it likely would have needed if the first level of funding had failed. But some cuts still will have to be made.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the results show Duluth voters care about their schools and don\u2019t want to reduce the amount of money we spend on them,\u201d Duluth Superintendent Keith Dixon said. \u201cObviously, we wish question two would have done better, but I\u2019m still taking this as great news.\u201d <\/p>\n
Voter approval of the first funding request came as somewhat of a surprise to Harry Welty, spokesman for the anti-red plan group Let Duluth Vote. During the campaign, members of his group had predicted a defeat for all three funding requests because of perceived anger over the school board\u2019s decision not to allow the community to vote on the red plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a vote by the Duluth citizenry to prevent wholesale slaughter in the classrooms, not at all an endorsement of the Duluth school board,\u201d Welty said. \u201cFrankly I think it shows a lost opportunity for the district. If people had been given a chance to vote on the red plan I think we would have seen all three levels of funding pass.\u201d <\/p>\n
Without passage of questions two and three, school programs in Duluth will still take a hit next year, but it won\u2019t be as bad as it could have been. The district will need to make about $3.5 million in cuts in 2009 compared with the $7.7 million that would have been required if all three levels of the operating levy had failed.<\/p>\n
It was fear of those cuts that pushed Luis Lugo to vote yes on all three levy requests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have two small kids in the Duluth schools,\u201d he said, \u201cand the community needs to support our school system.\u201d<\/p>\n
But not all voters felt as if they could provide that support, particularly given the struggling economy and the prospect of higher taxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t afford to pay anymore,\u201d voter Kathy Kloss said.<\/p>\n
Final decisions about which budget cuts must be made won\u2019t happen until spring, but the school board has tossed around limiting extracurricular activities, increasing class sizes, reducing busing services and reducing class offerings. Some earlier possibilities, including switching to a four-day school week, are less likely now that the district knows it can count on its current level of funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still going to have to make some tough decisions about how to render the deficit, but I believe some of the more extreme things we were talking about can be taken off the table at this point,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cWith level one passing, I think we will be able to maintain a lot of the quality programs we have in Duluth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From about November 05, 2008 This is the second old news article someone has sent me in the last week to remind me where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20695,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions\/20695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}