I attended the levy meeting at the high school on Tuesday night. I have been following the school cuts and the push for a levy for the past two years. I thought I was pretty well-informed. I realized at the meeting that there is a lot I didn’t know. Though there was a lot of conversation, and some debate, the most important bit of information to come out of the night were a few numbers: $116.00; $87.00; $58.00; $46.00. This is the yearly increase to property taxes, per year, if we pass this levy. If your home is valued at $200,000 you pay $116.00 a year. If it’s valued at $150,000 you pay $87 a yearh. If it’s valued at $100,000 you pay $58 and $80,000 you pay $46. That amounts to $9.67 a month for a $200,000 property owner and $3.83 a month for a $80,000 property owner. For most of us residing in Kimball we’re talking about the cost of a movie and popcorn. About the same as two movie rentals, a couple packs of cigarettes, or a few drinks at the pub. These are things we feel we deserve after a hard week of work. And we do. And our kids deserve a decent, local, education. We may have made mistakes in the past. Our school board may have made mistakes. Money may have been mismanaged. We may have been misinformed on spending and previous levys. This may all be true. But the kids weren’t running the school and they shouldn’t have to pay for the past. A school should have a librarian, a principal, field trips, plays, a choice of foreign languages, a choice between chemistry and physics. We had these things. Our kids don’t. Without a levy there will be more cuts next spring. We live in a community many of our families have called home for a hundred years or more – where there has always been a school system. Are we going to be the generation that loses the school? Candy Stewart-James
