Fayette County voters passed a referendum in April 2019 implementing a countywide sales tax to help pay for school facility needs. Later that year, lawmakers allowed another use for the tax revenue.
Now, school districts in Fayette County are asking voters in the March 19 primary to allow them to use the school facility tax for school resource officers and mental health professionals after lawmakers amended the code to include those two resources.
The amendment gives districts more local control and flexibility, according to Vandalia School District Superintendent Jennifer Garrison, whose district welcomed its first school resource officer this school year. The district also has added a mental health professional through grants in the last couple of years.
But Garrison knows one school resource officer to cover five buildings and 1,700 students and staff isn’t enough.
“The one we have is phenomenal, doing a wonderful job. But in the ideal world, would we have one per building? Yes,” she said.
After being a superintendent for 15-plus years, she also knows that the state hasn’t always been reliable when funding education, even though it has done better since 2017.
“Prior to that, there was this proration, where they weren’t paying us all of our funds. They are still prorating or cutting our transportation reimbursement. So, we see the value in those positions, and we’re trying to put the district in the position to have local control, the flexibility of using those funds,” she said.
Vandalia School District is the largest recipient of revenue from the tax in the county, accounting for nearly 50%. The district has used the tax revenue along with state grant funds to replace roofing and waterlines and for an addition between the elementary and junior high.
The extra revenue source has enabled the district to shift the burden from the tax levy, allowing them to decrease the rate.
“The simple way to look at it is it’s $1 million that we’ve shifted from local taxpayers to the sales tax,” said Garrison.
The 1% tax, or 1 cent tax on every dollar, is added to things such as fast food, gas and clothing but not groceries, titled vehicles or medicines. The revenue from the 1 cent sales tax can only be used for improving school facilities or for retiring new or current building bonds.
Garrison said the sales tax burden is shared by out-of-state visitors to Vandalia, which is located just off the interstate and highways.
“When you see out-of-state people, we’re sharing the burden with people visiting our community and not just from the local taxpayers,” she said.
Other counties in the Regional Office of Education 3 region – Bond, Christian and Montgomery – also have the tax. However, districts in Fayette County are the first to seek approval for use other than school facility projects. Effingham County is also in the ROE 3 region but does not currently have the tax, as voters have rejected it three times.
Beecher City School District, which is located in Effingham County, has students who live in Fayette County and, therefore, receives a small portion of the revenue from the tax. Last year, it was 2%. Superintendent Philip Lark said that amounts to about $5,000 a month, which he said the district has been using to help offset the cost of upgrades to its buildings. He noted the flexibility to use the revenue for safety and mental health resources would be helpful to the district in the future.
“Currently, we have been updating a couple of classrooms each summer, and we are in the process of remodeling the restrooms,” he said. “We will continue to use the money for upgrades until projects are completed, and then we would use money for our SRO or mental health professional.”
The tax revenue has been a “game changer” for Brownstown School District, according to Superintendent Michael J. Shackelford. The money has been used for long overdue updates to school buildings constructed in the 1940s and ’50s.
In all, Brownstown School Board has invested approximately $3 million in facility improvements on campus since 2019 through the use of the school facility sales tax.
“These are upgrades and improvements to the facilities and learning environment that either might not have occurred or would have likely required property taxes to get done,” he said.
However, Brownstown and other districts in Fayette County that receive revenue from the tax – St. Elmo and Ramsey – currently don’t have plans to use the tax revenue for SROs or mental health professionals if a majority of those voting on the question in the county approves it.
Ramsey Superintendent Melissa Ritter said school safety is a “huge” priority in her district, as the district has used the tax revenue for security upgrades. Still, the district does not have a school resource officer. She said hiring one in the future is possible, but that wouldn’t be contingent on whether voters approve the new use.
“We would hire one for the safety of our students. It would not be only if the voters pass the change of scope in the facility tax revenue,” she said. “This gives the voters a voice on the flexibility of spending in the future.”