To the editor,
I am writing in support of the 5.55 mill bond issue levy to construct a new Bowling Green High School. I have lived in Bowling Green for over 50 years and raised my family here. My son and daughter both attended Bowling Green Schools and two of my grandsons currently attend Bowling Green Middle School and High School. Our family experience with the Bowling Green school system has been excellent, but our senior high school facility is aging and is no longer adequate.
I love our town! We enjoy excellent City and County Government, a fine park system and superior recreational, cultural and sports activities. We have a great library and good, clean industries and businesses in our town. We have excellent teachers and administrators in our schools and our new superintendent Ted Haselman and the Board of Education has been very open and informative about the need for a new high school. If we want our town to continue to attach good families and businesses, we need to provide our students the up-to date facility they need to compete and prosper academically. If we don’t pass this levy now it will only cost more in the future.
This 5.55 mill bond issue levy is for the purpose of raising 73 million dollars to build a new high school. If approved the money can only be spent for that purpose. The Auditor, as required by law, used the current ‘tax assessment valve’, set at 35% of the Auditor’s appraised value, to set the levy amount millage.
A house having a current Audior’s appraised value of $250,000 has a tax assessment value of $87,500, (35% of $250,000) and would cost the home owner $485.63 per year for this bond levy. Each mill of an approved levy raises $1 per $1,000 of ‘tax assessment’ value. 5.55 x $87,500 equals $485.63 per year. The tax collected each year does not increase even if the Auditor’s appraised value of the property increases. The law requires the Auditor to adjust the amount collected on a voted bond levy to collect only the amount originally approved. That amounts to $9.34 per week or $1.33 per day on a $250,000 house, not even the cost of a weekly pizza, to ensure Bowling Green remains one of the best places live and raise a family.
Chet Marcin
Bowling Green
