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Districts Seek Sales-Tax Renewal

Posted on: Thursday, 7 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 7--Two of Johnson County's three largest school districts will appear before county commissioners today, asking to renew a quarter-cent sales tax that expires in December.

Election commissioner Brian Newby said an election resolution must be passed today to get a ballot question before voters on Sept. 27.

Marge Kaplan, superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District, and Tom Trigg, superintendent of the Blue Valley School District, both are requesting the county's remaining sales tax authority for the next three years.

That would leave the county with no sales-tax revenue to help pay for a growing list of projects, whose price tag has swelled beyond $700 million. Included on the list are more jail space and a new courthouse, crime lab and juvenile services building.

The Olathe School District chose not to approach commissioners. The district's growing population provides the district greater state aid, leaving it in less of a bind than Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley.

State law allows the schools to seek the remaining county sales tax authority without leaving the county a chance to benefit from its own tax.

It is up to school leaders to decide whether they want to agree to ballot language that could be structured to provide the county a portion of the sales tax proceeds. Any new tax would have to meet with voter approval.

Since the sales tax began Jan. 1, 2003, it has generated an estimated $47.2 million for schools. It also generated an estimated $27 million for cities. The tax expires Dec. 31.

Voters approved the tax to supplement school funding and give state legislators time to create a more equitable funding formula.

"I ask that you renew the sales tax, with the county's entire share again dedicated to education, in hopes that a permanent solution will be reached before the taxing authority expires," Kaplan wrote in a July 1 memo to Annabeth Surbaugh, chairwoman of the County Commission.

"At the end of that three-year period," Kaplan wrote, "we will re-evaluate our financial position, keeping in mind that the county has needs as well."

Don Jarrett, the commission's chief legal counsel, is crafting several tax scenarios and possible ballot language.

For example, the tax could be extended for seven to 10 years, with the schools getting the revenue in the first three years and the county getting it in the next four to seven years. Schools would have to weigh whether that would help or hinder the tax's chance of approval.

Newby, the election commissioner, said today was the "drop dead" deadline to authorize ballot language for a Sept. 27 election. Surbaugh said she was convinced Newby has more wiggle room to pull off an election on short notice.

"We'll do whatever we have to to make it happen," Newby said Wednesday. Newby estimated that a mail ballot election would cost $700,000 and a poll election would cost $400,000.

The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. today in the third-floor public-hearing room of the County Administration Building, 111 S. Cherry St., Olathe. The request is expected to be heard during the "miscellaneous" section of the meeting.

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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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