Cardinal voters reject tax levy Tuesday

ELDON – Voters in the Cardinal Community School District rejected a bond measure Tuesday that would have extended a tax levy 10 years to pay for the school's infrastructure.

The Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, which cost taxpayers $1.34 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, failed with 121 votes against it and 109 votes in favor. The tax has been in place for 20 years.

The current PPEL will expire on June 30, 2021. Cardinal School Superintendent Joel Pedersen said the loss of this PPEL tax revenue will cost the school about $233,000 the first year, rising to about $305,000 by the end of 10 years.

Pedersen said the main expense the district wanted the PPEL for was to help cover the cost of sewer upgrades. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has mandated Cardinal to upgrade its sewage lagoon system by October 2021 at a cost of about $1 million. The agency recommended the school abandon its sewage lagoons on site, and instead become a sewer customer of the city of Eldon.

'There is a cost for us to improve a lift station and install pipes [to connect to Eldon],” Pedersen said. 'We would have used PPEL funding on top of USDA funding. This is a very important thing, and we don't have an option not to do it.”

Pedersen said the PPEL would have also gone to support transportation needs, such as replacing one to two buses each year, and technology upgrades in the classrooms.

Pedersen said the close vote, losing 52 percent to 48 percent, means he and the district 'need to try a little bit harder to communicate” the district's needs to the voters.

To pass, the PPEL needed only a 50 percent plus one majority.

About 9 percent of eligible voters participated in the election.