Riverview School Board passes final budget with slightly smaller tax increase of 3.3%

After an unorthodox voting session Monday night, the Riverview School Board members adopted a final budget that includes a tax hike for Oakmont and Verona residents.

The spending plan includes a 3.3% (0.8-mill) tax increase, which is slightly lower than the tentative budget approved earlier. It projects expenditures of just over $26.9 million and revenues of about $26.9 million.

School board members have been criticized over the past month after passing a proposed 2024-25 budget that included a 5.3% tax increase. The initial proposal was an effort to close an $860,000 deficit between revenues and expenditures, create a director of special education position and hire two full-time teachers.

With a 0.8-mill increase, the district will be able to follow through with plans for a special education director, a position currently held by elementary school Principal Christina Monroe. Only one teacher position will be added to the staff.

Board member Brian Hawk said there would be a deficit of about $100,000 in the budget. That will be covered by pulling money from the district’s nearly $3 million capital reserve fund.

Homeowners at the median assessed value of $153,000 will pay $3,813 after the 0.8-mill increase, about $122 more than the current tax bill.

After more than 10 residents spoke against a tax hike at the board’s voting meeting Monday night, each member was given the opportunity to speak in favor of or against a tax increase.

Board member Wendy Wilton spoke in support of a 3.3% tax hike.

“We have almost $3 million in our capital reserve,” she said. “In the next three years, we have $4.5 million in projects that we are expected to do.”

Hawk and board President Jennifer Chaparro attended the meeting virtually and also expressed support for the tax hike.

Members Roger Pogoda and Leanne Jacobs-Rohan, who also attended virtually, said they would support a 3.3% increase.

“When I look back, I’m not going to remember how much I paid in taxes,” Pogoda said. “I’m going to think of the opportunities (my children) had.”

He said the board should not plan to touch the reserve fund at all.

“We should be saving our fund balance for an emergency. That’s why it’s there.”

Board member Bridget Seery chose to support the “middle road” and a 2.65% tax increase. This would have been half of the 5.3% proposal, with more than $400,000 from the reserve fund covering the deficit.

Erin Schuetz supported the same raise, saying: “This isn’t easy. None of this is easy.”

Board member Stefani Garibay said now is an appropriate time to use reserve funds.

“We do need a special education director,” she said. “That’s not even a question. An elementary school principal cannot do both.”

Garibay said she supported covering the complete $860,000 deficit with the funds and retaining a special education director.

“I’d like to think that our students, our teachers, our special education director — that’s the emergency,” she said. “That’s what we save that money for.”

Antonio Paris, board vice president, echoed the sentiment, saying he saw the tax increase as “unnecessary.”

After seeing that a 3.3% tax increase received the most support with five members speaking in favor of it, the budget passed in a 6-3 vote. Paris, Garibay and Schuetz voted no.