Mt. Pleasant schools increases tax levy to meet state guarantee

The Mt. Pleasant school board approved a levy increase for the fiscal year 2022 budget. The levy will go from $13.89 to $13.98 per $1,000 taxable valuation.

The reason for the levy increase is the loss of approximately 50 students in the past 2019-2020 year. The loss of those students resulted in a loss of funding.

“All Iowa school districts are eligible for the budget guarantee, which means districts are guaranteed a 1 percent increase from the previous year’s program dollars,” Mt. Pleasant Schools Superintendent John Henriksen said. “Since we had a decline in enrollment over the past year, we are on the budget guarantee and that’s funded by the local property taxes.”

The budget guarantee is a state program that helps school districts that have seen years of declining enrollment or low supplemental state aid set by the state. The fiscal year 2022 budget guarantee amounted to $114,386 or $0.18 of the general fund levy.

“In order to get to that $114,000, we had to raise the tax levy 9 cents,” Henriksen said.