Highlands budget would hike taxes, spend $1.6 million from reserves

The Highlands School District would increase property taxes by the maximum allowed by the state, and spend $1.6 million from its reserves, under the district’s proposed final budget for the 2019-20 school year.

Unless it is changed before the final vote in June, property taxes would go up by 3.3%, or 0.81 mills. That would add about $81 to the annual school property tax bill for a house assessed at $100,000.

The school board approved the proposed $46.2 million budget on a vote of 7-1, with board member Heath Cohen absent.

Board member Misty Chybrzynski cast the only opposing vote. After the meeting, she cited concerns with the tax increase and use of the district’s fund balance.

“We can still do more work to bring that down,” she said. “Hopefully, the administration will go back to work and find more savings.”

A 3.3% increase would raise Highlands’ property tax rate from 24.63 mills to 25.44 mills.

On the income side, the district is including more money coming in from collection of delinquent property taxes, now being handled by the district’s solicitor, the law firm of Weiss Burkardt Kramer.

The school board Monday approved paying the firm $15,000 to cover filing fees as it pursues unpaid property taxes.

Of that amount, $5,000 is to cover the cost of arbitration complaints, which would be pursued on taxpayers owing less than $5,000 that are no more than five years delinquent. The firm would at first file 1o-to-15 complaints; the cost ranges from $250 to $300, plus an additional $35 for each judgment filed.

The remaining $10,000 would pay for five sheriff sale filings, which cost $2,000 each.

In both cases, the district recovers the fees when the taxpayer pays, according to Weiss Burkardt Kramer.

In spending, the budget includes $270,000 for a new science curriculum for kindergarten through eighth grade. The school board approved buying textbooks Monday — Smithsonian Science for the Classroom for K-4 and Elevate Science from Pearson for grades 5-8.

Former Fawn elementary closed

The Highlands Support Center, formerly Fawn Primary Center, will close at the end of this school year.

The school board’s vote Monday to close the building follows a state-required public hearing in February. It had been renamed and repurposed in the district’s building reconfiguration that started with this school year.

School board President Debbie Beale said the district will sell the property.

The district in March hired Integra Realty Resources to prepare an appraisal of the building. The district has not released the results of that appraisal.

In April, the school board approved closing the partial hospital program which serves students with mental health issues housed at the building at the end of this school year. Beale said the alternative education program housed at the school will be moved to the high school.

Superintendent Monique Mawhinney said an inventory of the building will be conducted to see what furniture and other fixtures can be moved to other district buildings.

Among the things Beale said will be moved is a concrete turtle. It has moved around the district since first being bought for the playground at the former Birdville school in 1968.

The Birdville school closed in 1989 and is now home to Citizens Hose.

It was not said where the turtle will make its new home.