North Platte Public Schools’ next property tax rate would drop slightly — despite sizable increases in the district’s taxable value and tax request — under its proposed 2023-24 budget.
School officials will present an $80.33 million spending plan for all funds at a special school board budget hearing at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the McKinley Education Center, 301 West F St.
Board members will wait until their Sept. 11 meeting to vote on the budget for the fiscal year that starts Friday.
Tax rate down for 4th year
If it’s eventually adopted as presented Thursday, the district would charge a 2023 school tax rate of $1.084 per $100 of taxable value, down 0.34% from the 2022 rate of $1.088 per $100.
That would mark the fourth straight year North Platte’s schools have reduced their tax rate — even though their tax request for all funds would leap by 9.7% after growing just 1.4% in 2022-23.
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It declined each of the two years before that as the district paid off bonds first for the current North Platte High School, dedicated in 2003, and then a Lake Maloney Elementary School building project started before North Platte’s 2006 state-mandated merger with nearby K-8 rural districts.
As always, school taxes will account for the majority of city residents’ final property tax bill. The city of North Platte and Lincoln County together account for about one-third.
The school district’s total 2023 taxable value grew just over 10%, rising from $2.67 billion to $2.94 billion. As a Telegraph story explained Tuesday, that would spread the schools’ higher tax request over a larger valuation “base,” blunting its impact on 2023 tax bills.
School patrons also can reclaim part of their K-12 property tax payments via a credit on their state income taxes. Final 2023 percentages for that income-tax credit haven’t been announced.
Stuart Simpson, the North Platte schools’ executive director of finance, said the district’s valuation jump and a loss of 65 full-time equivalent students in 2022-23 were major factors in crafting the new budget plan.
Both figured into a net $708,352 loss in North Platte’s state school aid for 2023-24, despite a $108.7 million statewide infusion into the regular aid formula by the 2023 Legislature.
So did delays by the federal government in updating statewide figures on numbers of students in poverty. That held down North Platte’s 2023-24 “equalization aid,” which has accounted for most of the district’s regular help from the state.
Simpson said the return of per-student “foundation aid” for the first time since 1990 simply offset much of what North Platte had gotten in equalization aid.
The district might get some of this year’s state-aid loss back in 2024-25 once federal poverty figures finally are updated, he said.
Meanwhile, it should start receiving substantial increases by December in state special-education aid that also was part of the Legislature’s school-aid reforms. A May projection for state senators estimated North Platte would gain about $1.94 million that way.
“We want people to know we’ll be monitoring our revenue as it comes in so we’re getting everything that’s due” from the state, Simpson said.
Tax request lids and inflation
Though the district’s tax request will be nearly 10% higher, he added, it still fits under complicated new limits on school tax requests that the Legislature imposed this year.
They limit growth in a district’s “property tax request authority” to 3% plus smaller percentages based on enrollment growth, students in poverty and students for whom English is a second language. Taxes to repay bonds aren’t included.
If 70% of school board members agree, a district’s tax request authority can grow further based on its total enrollment. For that authority to grow beyond that, 60% of the district’s voters would have to approve it.
This decade’s spikes in nationwide inflation helped drive up North Platte’s property tax needs, Simpson said.
Teacher and staff salaries — always the largest share of school budgets — would rise a collective 6.5% under the proposed 2023-24 budget.
But Simpson said costs have risen 7% for the district’s health insurance, 15% for liability and workers’ compensation insurance and 10% for utility bills.
“I think the thing people don’t understand is the magnitude of money we spend on utilities and insurance,” he said. “We’re up to $700,000 for liability insurance and a million for utility costs in the district. We’re trying to control it as best we can.”
The district’s general-fund budget — which includes most of its direct educational costs — would go up 5% over its 2022-23 total. Total authorized spending in all funds would go up 6.5%.
North Platte’s bond fund, which included final Lake Maloney School bond payments last year, would shrink to $27,935 in 2023-24. Simpson said that accounts for an expected trickle of late tax payments from previous years.
Authorized spending in two other funds that finance building improvements — the special building fund and the Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund — would go up by 29.5% and 10.6% respectively.
Simpson said the latter fund covers payments on recent years’ HVAC upgrades at Washington, Cody, Buffalo and Lincoln schools. Those will be paid off by the end of 2026.
The special building fund would pay this coming year for similar HVAC work at Eisenhower Elementary School, roof maintenance throughout the district and lighting upgrades in NPHS’ Performing Arts Center.
“The lighting is 20 years old, and we’re experiencing issues with the lighting,” Simpson said.
