There was recently a miscalculation on the 2004 levy expiration date. I looked into my interviews with the Kelley Thorpe, Monroe School Treasurer to see if there was any evidence for the miscalculation.

On February 18, 2008 I interviewed Kelley Thorpe about Monroe school levies.

Excerpt from that interview:

John Beagle: Our $1, 500,000 Levy is going to expire in November of 2009. Will we be bringing that up for renewal, or is there a plan to combine our multiple emergency levies?

Kelley Thorpe: I don’t know exactly what we will be presenting to the voters next year. Nor do I know an amount. 

John Beagle: Can you provide me a list of our active school district tax levies?

Kelley Thorpe:
Current Expense levy – passed Nov. 14, 1969 – continuous – originally was 11.51 mills
Current Expense levy – passed Nov. 7, 1979 – continuous – originally was 6.76 mills
These two levies have been rolled back to 14.84 total mills collected instead of the original 18.27 voted mills. When combined with our 5.16 inside mills, the 14.84 effective rate puts us at the 20-mill floor.

Emergency levy – passed Nov. 2, 2004 – five years – $1,500,000
Emergency levy – passed Aug. 8, 2006 – five years – $930,418
Emergency levy – passed Nov. 7, 2006 – five years – $1,119,280

Full interview: Monroe Levy Discussion with School Treasurer Kelley Thorpe 

Today, I asked School Treasurer Kelley Thorpe about the mix-up on the expiration date of the 2004 levy.

Kelley Thorpe: When I started as treasurer in 2007, one of the first things that I did as treasurer was to meet with the county auditor’s office to meet their employees and to get a firm understanding of the various levies, their millage amounts, and their expiration dates. There is nothing in the files here that indicated whether the 2004 levy was a renewal or a new levy. As I stated in the public session at the board meeting on March 23 and in the article in the Journal, I was operating under the assumption that the information given to me by the auditor’s office at that meeting in 2007 was correct. It was not.

John Beagle: You ran the levy in 2004, but it didn’t start until 2005 so couldn’t you do that for 2009 and 2010?

Kelley Thorpe: ...an emergency levy can be placed on the ballot for renewal anytime during the year of final collections or the November immediately prior to the last year of collections. If the district wanted to renew the $1.5 million emergency operating levy that expires in December 2010, we could put the issue on the ballot at any election starting November 2009.

However, the board would like to convert the existing emergency levies into substitute levies. These substitute levies are essentially the same as the emergency levies they would be replacing (with no increase in taxes to the homeowner) with one exception – they will grow in value as new construction occurs in Monroe. With all of the construction that is currently underway and proposed out by I-75, it is my recommendation that the board place a measure on the ballot this November to convert these levies now – before we lose the ability to include that new commercial growth.

Live Discussion on The Voice: Monroe Levy 

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Here are other discussions regarding Monroe School Levies:

The Voice - $2M in Emergency Levies to Expire in next 2-3 yrs