MASON CITY – The Mason City School Board met for its regular monthly meeting on Monday evening, July 15th, 2013.
The school board approved the pursuit of a voter-approved Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL). The levy will be 67 cents per $1000.00 valuation on property taxes, for 5 years. This levy joins the Instructional Support Levy (ISL) on the September 10th ballot in Mason City.
Regarding the ISL, the school district is setting up a committee to educate the public on the idea of approving the new tax. Brochures and other literature are being designed at this time. Mason City is the only 4A school in the state without an ISL.
If both levies pass, according to the discussion Monday evening, total tax for property owners in Mason City would be $11.85 per $1,000.00
The school board extended a one-year agreement for the following shared positions between the Mason City Community School District and the Clear Lake Community School District: Superintendent, Food Service and Nutrition Director and IT Director. Regarding Superintendent Micich’s salary, 60% ($112,000) is paid by the Mason City School District and 40% is paid by Clear Lake School District. The board also agreed with Mrs. Micich on looking into new sharing opportunities not just with Clear Lake, but with other school districts and entities such as NIACC, where law permits.
A salary/benefits package of a 2.5% overall increase for superintendent, district administrators,supervisors, food service managers and other miscellaneous school personnel not under bargaining units was approved (see video for discussion).
Watch video on 2.5% raise approved for school district administrators:
httpv://youtu.be/MFw8_HuuFug
Watch video on PPEL discussion:
httpv://youtu.be/9SrQAhAWfK8
Again, funding is rising 2 percent this next year, 4 percent the year after that, plus a one time stimulas next year?
Everybody in the system just recieved a generous raise!
Can somebody please tell me why they need more?
Ben for me its not so much the teachers, its our administration that is to top heavy and their wallets are getting stuffed so high with money you could jump off one of them and fall to your death. A little over kill on that but really do we need all of these people running 6-7 schools? Our student population has went downward for the last 10 years. Our adninistator head count has went up. Something is wrong with this picture. “SEMPER FI”
@USMCSSG-I certainly agree with your comments here.
USMCSSG,
I agree with you 100% on your comment.
Here is some math for you: Let’s say you get a babysitter one night so you can go out and spend your money on cigarettes and alcohol that so many people can still afford on their low/fixed income. You hire a babysitter and since you are extremely cheap, let’s say you pay your sitter $5/hr to watch your child. Now let’s go with a low end number and say that a teacher has 25 kids in a class. $5/hr x 25 kids x 7 hours x 180 days…. That comes out to $157,500 a year. I am pretty sure no classroom teacher makes near that amount. Let’s say that a teacher has been in the classroom for 15 years and is now making $50,000 a year, approximately 1/3 of that total. 1/3 of $5/hr come out to about $1.67 per hour per kid. First year teachers making 1/2 of that would be .84 cents an hour per kid. It seems to me people with kids in school have a pretty cheap daycare, plus their kids are being taught not only academics, but how to be a good, respectable, and responsible person….the attributes not being taught at home.
Ben, I can’t get a babysitter to come to my house and babysit 25 kids. I would have to take my kid to a daycare facility/business. There the babysitter gets $5 per hour (your number) period, for the 25 kids. not $25 per hour per kid. The facility/business gets the per kid price. To pay for the necessary additional costs. I don’t know of any babysitter who gets $157,000 a year.
Each parent that uses the daycare is paying approximately $30 day per kid…..Each parent is paying that much to the business (the daycare) to watch their child. Go to Tuggs and find out how many kids are there during the day and give me the breakdown of the hourly wage that business is making per hour. As has been said before to the people who complain about the salaries and benefits of teachers….If they have it so good, go get your education degree and become one. We had conservative fools who made sure Cerro Gordo County didn’t get a casino… and now Worth County, their schools, and their students are reaping the rewards of Diamond Joes. MC is the only 4A school in the state without a levy. This just handcuffs options and progress for the students. If you don’t think so it might be a good idea to pull your head out of the sand and realize this is 2013, not 1973. A lot has happened in the last 40 years.
LVS, fyi these are not the ‘rich’. Teachers in Iowa are not overpaid. Cluster, you have your math wrong. You are forgetting the role back. To summarize, approximately 38% of the property taxes you pay go to the school.
As far as the math goes…. the roll back has nothing to do with this. Your taxable valuation includes the roll back.. So, it is based on the taxable valuation that u see on your property tax statement… The amount I mentioned is added on to the already high taxes that we pay…. To be sure maybe call the County Treasurer’s department. They could give the exact amount….
LVS, teachers are over paid more than the average wage. For less work time, not to mention over generous benefits as well. When wages and benefits are combined they are over paid. Then look at administrators pay, way over the top, like more than double the average Iowans pay whose income it is that is taken off them in taxes to pay these people’s salary.
I believe my “School Tax” bill is 45% of my taxes after roll back. The other 55% goes for all City, County, Niacc etc. think about it, I pay property tax for virtually a lifetime to send my kids to school for 13 years worth of education. Some property owners don’t even have kids. We need a more equitable system. Paid by the users, watch the freeloaders complain then.
@Anonymous-Anita is certainly what MOST people in Mason City would call rich. The teachers may not be rich but they are certainly in the upper income brackets for this area. To suck more money from people who do not make as much is just wrong.
We on the side that oppose this need to get our facts in order and work harder than the School system does to railroad this thing past us. If I am correct in my math, the average home owner will pay over $610 per year for this school tax. (This is not counting business or Appartment complex owners and their are a lot of appartment owners in Mason City.) $11.85 that they use sounds a lot less intimidating than $610.00, most of us pay our property taxes out of our escrow account and if you had to write a check for this each year you would be outraged.
You are not correct in your math. It is 11.85 per $ 1,000 taxable valuation… So, If you house is valued at $ 100,000 you will pay an extra $ 118.50 per year. Even that is too much….
I pay about $ 2,000 per year now and my wages have not gone up to cover all the increases.
I really don’t think these will pass — now that they are doing 2 at the same time. They just shot themselves in the foot in my opinion!!! Good!!!
Cluster, excuse me but your math doesn’t compute for me. $1000 property value is $11.85 tax. When multiplied 10 times (one decimal point) it’s $10,000 in valuation at 118.50 tax. And with $100,000 (2 decimal points) valuation the property tax comes to $1,185.00
You all complain about kids these days not learning basic math, try some yourselves. This isn’t raising anybodies taxes by $11 plus dollars per thousand, it’s raising it 81 cents per thousand. If you own a home valued at 100,000 dollars, you’ll pay an extra 81 dollars per year.
That’s with both levies included.
Just to ad enlarge the photo and look at that big ol smile on Micichs face!!!
“LVS” I agree with on this topic and please to everyone that reads this VOTE NO as im sick of this administration getting a raise. Again VOTE NO. “SEMPER FI”
I know, let’s hold a vote every time the government wants to give people in the military a raise. I’d love to see all these cowards (people who post under screen names) cry about their taxes then. It’s obviously more important to fight wars 10000 miles away than it is to give our children the best opportunity to succeed in the future.
Before you go there, I respect our fighting men and women and believe they should have maximum support in theater. Do you really think if we hadn’t gone to Iraq America would be in any danger of adopting a national language of Arabic any time soon?
Let’s call a spade a spade and just admit that most of the people against this education levy simply don’t want to pony up the extra 100 bucks or so it’s gonna cost em.
I’m sure Northwood will appreciate the extra revenue.
This is exactly what is wrong with this country today. The rich get richer on the backs of the taxpayers. There is no way to justify a raise of $2,700 for someone making over 180K. There should be a cap on what she can make and that is that. VOTE NO. NO MORE MONEY. They just piss it away.
Again, the state of Iowa just agreed to a 2% increase in funding for this year, a 4% increase in the following year. Along with a one time lump sum, for the upcoming year. All this equals well over a 6% increase in the next two years?
Why do theu need more?
They deserve it! Who can live on $3500 a week ??