Sioux Falls School District share of property taxes going down next year – Sioux Falls Live

Homeowners in the Sioux Falls School District will pay less in property taxes next year under a tentative budget adopted on Monday.

School District Business Manager Todd Vik said they take taxpayer’s pocketbooks seriously when adopting a budget.

“We not only look out for what’s good for students, the staff, the community but also for the taxpayers, too,” he said as the School Board unanimously approved a tentative budget for the upcoming school year.

The Sioux Falls School District’s portion of the property tax bill for a typical house is expected to drop by 3.3 percent next year, he said. That’s on top of a 3.1 percent decrease this year.

That doesn’t mean the taxes for every property owner will go down that amount. That’s because the final amount paid is based on a number of factors, including which city and county you live in and whether the property is an owner-occupied house, commercial, industrial or agriculture.

For instance, the Sioux Falls School District doesn’t cover the entire city. A homeowner can live inside the city limits and be in one of seven different school districts, including Harrisburg, Brandon Valley and Tea Area. The property tax bill in one of those districts may go up or down, depending on the school board’s decisions.

Property values generally have been increasing over the past several years, but that alone is not an indication of how much taxes you pay. That is based on the budgets adopted each year by the city, county and school district in which you live.

Complicating matters further is an effort by the South Dakota Legislature to curb the growth in property taxes by limiting valuations of owner-occupied houses. How that plays out in each jurisdiction also will determine your bill.

In Sioux Falls, however, this year’s school budget a much different animal than in recent years, according to Vik and Superintendent Jane Stavem.

The budget is heavily influenced by $3.1 million in budget cuts necessary because of the expiration of extra federal COVID aid that was provided to help schools nationwide navigate through the pandemic years.

The aid totaled more than $10 million from fiscal year 2020 to 2025 which was used by the district mostly to hire extra behavioral and academic staff.

That funding is over, though, and that’s part of the reason for the budget cuts.

Vik and Stavem pointed out that a small increase state aid that was approved by the state Legislature this past winter also affected the budget. The state aid formula is only providing an increase of 1.25 percent per student for the next school year, which is well below increases in recent years.

Vik said state law calls for a 3 percent increase that can be boosted if inflation is higher, but despite that there was a reduction in the increase.

A 3 percent increase would have had provided an estimated $3.1 million more which is what’s being cut.

The cuts were drawn up through committee meetings involving more than 100 people and the School Board. Vik said they looked into all areas of the budget where they could make decreases with the No. 1 priority being limiting negative effects on the classroom

The cuts, which range from reducing supplies to cutting educational assistants and a few teachers, totaled about $3.1 million.

It was said earlier that no one would lose a job as they could be transferred to another area or through a position after a retirement or an employee leaving the district

In all, Vik said the tax-supported budget is $342 million, which besides the general fund which takes care of the day-to-day operations of the school, also includes special education, capital outlay for building maintenance and projects and paying off bonds for new schools and major facility improvements.

The general fund will be $232 million in the coming school year.

Almost all of that goes for salaries, and Vik noted in a statement that with the state aid increase of 1.25 percent it is now tied to what kind of an increase teachers and other staff can receive. He said the school district was locked into an increase of 1.85 percent for staff this coming school year, however.

Before adopting the tentative budget, which will be finalized in July, there was a public hearing. No one appeared to speak out.

School Board member Nan Kelly made the most comments before the vote saying, “I can’t think of a better place for tax dollars to go than for public education.”

She said the schools are training the workforce of the future for Sioux Falls and if residents desire a top notch community the funding for public education is a must.

Despite the cuts, Kelly said the district is still keeping the teacher to student ratio in the classrooms at 24 to 1 with behavioral and academic assistance staff still in place to help students as well as the program to boost reading abilities.