This summer, the Rockwood school board unanimously voted to place a Proposition on the ballot for a 45-cent tax levy increase. The proposed increase would mean an extra 45-cents for every 100 dollars of a property appraisal. The district has put Proposition S on the ballot in efforts to increase teacher and staff salaries, expand health care benefits, and hire another two safety officers for the entire district. However, there are many other aspects in which the additional funds will be used, if passed, Superintendent Dr. Curtis Cain said.
“What we’re going to engage [if Prop S is passed] is a comparable rate study. We’re going to look at what is happening across the county as relates to pay for different positions, compare that to where we have our employee groups falling as a school district and then make adjustments accordingly,” Cain said. “The other component is going to be benefits. We have a number of employees that are full-time equivalent staff that are not receiving [benefits]. The other component is our SSOs [School Safety Officers]. We want to add two additional school safety officers that will engage in what our current four SSOs are engaged in on a daily basis. They’ve been a fantastic addition to our school district, and we want to make sure that those components are all in place.”
Rockwood gets 79 percent of their funding from local taxes, coupled with the fact a levy has not been on the ballot since 1994; Rockwood is paying their faculty significantly less than the others in the St. Louis county area. In addition Rockwood is in a mainly residential area so they have to raise property taxes, while other districts can get taxes from the organizations in their borders. Cain said every district’s tax rate is different depending on what corporations are within their borders.
“There are 22 comparative school districts in St. Louis County, and every one of them has their own unique funding structure when it comes to their tax rate and their tax base as well. And everybody has its own composition in terms of what it looks like,” Cain said. “For example, there are districts that have much more commercial base or industrial base that is used to offset and ultimately inform their tax rate. There are school districts that have casinos within them. They utilize those resources to impact their tax rate. And there’s a school district that has an airport that’s within it. And I can promise you, that makes a difference from taxation if that happens to be your reality. So it’s really a contextual, like 22 different contextual realities that school districts ultimately are utilizing whatever puzzle pieces they have in front of them and ultimately deciding their fiscal reality moving forward from there.”
Last year the Rockwood school district and the Rockwood National Education Association (RNEA) entered negotiations for higher teacher wages. After months of negotiations the two parties compromised on a 10 percent pay increase over two years. Cain said that Rockwood is aware they need to stay competitive in order to retain their staff.
The district has four high schools, six middle schools, and 19 elementary schools; so, where do the tax dollars go? Cain said Rockwood spends its tax stipend on a myriad of things, but an overwhelming majority of the funds goes to instructional materials in the schools.
“Sixty-eight percent of what we receive, as it relates to funding, goes to support what happens instructionally within our schools. We have facilities, school supplies, central administration, and then transportation that break out almost fractionally when it comes to the breakout of those funds themselves,” Cain said.
Proposition S will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Anyone eligible to vote in St. Louis County can vote on the levy.
