Area districts ask voters to OK sales tax plans

By Steven Martens | Friday, September 05, 2008

Several area school districts are asking voters to approve plans Tuesday that will direct how the districts can spend state 1-cent sales tax revenues.

The ballot item is not a new tax, but a plan on how the districts intend to spend the revenues from a statewide 1-cent sales tax, which has replaced the local-option sales tax approved by all Iowa counties to fund school infrastructure improvements, according to the Iowa Association of School Boards.

Eastern Iowa districts voting on proposed revenue purpose statements include Central Clinton, Calamus-Wheatland, Camanche, Maquoketa and Louisa-Muscatine.

Approval of the revenue purpose statements will allow districts to fund not only improvements to infrastructure, but land purchases for future development, equipment and technology, emergency repairs and debt services.

A simple majority is required to approve the revenue purpose statements. If voters do not approve the statements, the

district will be required to first use the state sales tax revenues to pay off debt before any funding can be used for infrastructure or other uses.

Camanche Superintendent Tom Parker said he hopes the message is getting out to voters that the revenue purpose statement is not a new tax, but simply an authorization on how to spend the revenues that already are being generated by a statewide sales tax.

“That’s a very important message,” he said.