Colfax school levy: One week to levy pass or fail

As of April 19, 1,034 of 2,400 mailed ballots on the Colfax School levy election have been received back on the Colfax school levy proposal. The levy is up for a vote after the district’s first levy proposal failed in the Feb. 9 special election.

The votes will be counted the night of April 27, deadline day for return of the ballots.

Voters are asked to vote on a $950,000 levy for 2011 and a $970,000 levy for 2012. The figures are sharply decreased from the district’s first levy proposal of $1.3 million.

This new levy came in the wake of a series of public meetings in which voters turned out to ask the district about the failed levy and voice opinions on what they wanted in the new levy.

Citizens for Quality Schools has conducted an extensive levy campaign since early March, beseeching voters to vote “yes” for the second round levy.

A group which formed directly after the levy failed, the Future of Colfax Education (FCE), later joined up with Citizens for Quality Schools, the long-standing group responsible for advertising the district levy.

For the past month and a half, the group has plastered Colfax businesses and residences with posters and fliers on the levy.

An extensive phone tree informing Colfax voters about the levy and asking them to vote “yes” is now all but completed, said Kirby Dailey, one of the organizers behind the campaign.

FCE initially set up a web site asking for voters to post questions and opinions about the levy at colfaxschools.org.

School budget cuts in excess of $200,000 must be made in the district to keep step with the state cuts, some due to enrollment decline. The district administration is now finalizing a list of those cuts.

Superintendent Michael Morgan suggested at the last March school board meeting that laying off three certified staff and hiring back two classified staff is a better option than “nickel and diming” other school programs to the tune of $200,000.

Colfax school staff must be notified of any layoffs by May 14. Morgan has said in previous board meetings he does not want to bring the inevitable cuts to the school board until they know the results of the April 27 election.

The levy figure is much lower than the district’s original proposal of $1.3 million because the school district is now more certain the state will supply some levy equalization dollars. Within the $1.3 million was the amount of the state’s levy equalization to the district, about $325,000 extra, in case the state didn’t pass out the equalization dollars.

At the urging of an upset public and more confident they will receive the $325,000, the district opted to leave that out of their next levy proposal, dropping the figure to $950,000.