From the 10/23/2024 Courier:
In April 2016, I voted along with 1,362 Woodland Park citizens to approve the 1.09% increase in city sales taxes to support our school’s post-secondary preparation courses, innovative school programs, technology, staff salaries, and facility maintenance and improvements. At the time, the school district decided to keep the sales tax revenue in the unrestricted general fund instead of creating a separate fund to monitor the restrictions. That was acceptable when district leaders were trusted to make decisions that benefited all of our schools. In the past few years, however, decisions resulting in losses have deteriorated trust in the school board and superintendent. It was also not anticipated 8 1⁄2 years ago that the person deciding how our community sales tax revenue would be spent, Superintendent Ken Witt, wouldn’t even be a member of our community or county. My own conservative values cause me to question the superintendent’s intentions for our schools and whether they align with fiscally conservative principles and our community’s traditionally conservative values.
Love for our schools is one of our community’s strongest values, although some are implying that a vote to revoke the 1.09% sales tax means the voter doesn’t support our teachers or students. That implication assumes that the school sales tax agreement as it currently stands truly serves our students and teachers in the best possible way. I am an actively involved parent in multiple schools in our district, and I can attest that many of our teachers and students don’t feel the benefits of the sales tax the way they should.
If the sales tax is not being managed by trusted leaders and if it isn’t benefitting teachers and students as intended, is there a better way? Here are ideas of how our community can still support our schools, teachers and students if the current sales tax agreement is revoked.
• Rent out the empty Gateway Elementary building to generate revenue for the school district. In 2022, a Long-Range Facilities Master Plan survey asked what community partnerships our district could explore to help utilize unused space in our school buildings. Some suggestions were an Early Childhood Center or a Community Health Center. The most popular option was a Community College.
• Smaller sales tax for COP payments. The current sales tax revenue pays around $720,000 annually for the Certificate of Participation (COP) lease. A smaller sales tax increase could be voted on to cover just the lease payments, which would also be easier to monitor.
• Revamp the school sales tax. If there’s still support for the 1.09% sales tax for our schools, we could hold a new vote with more precise guidelines on fund allocation. For instance, we could allocate a specific percentage of the revenue for staff bonuses and another percentage for career prep courses.
Ultimately, trust in our school leadership is broken, prompting reevaluation. While the 1.09% sales tax was initially seen as a pathway to enhance our educational system, we must consider whether it still effectively serves its purpose.
Laura Gordon