Though the 5.47 percent levy increase approved at Monday night’s school board meeting reflects an added ask on the tax base, the Albert Lea Area Schools Deputy Superintendent Lori Volz said she feels that tax impact will look different on different properties.

For homestead residential properties, the tax base expanded. Therefore, the spread of the increased pay 2019 levy on a larger tax base means that taxes for houses valued at $100,000 in the homestead residential properties category will go down $3, from $440 to $437.

For commercial industrial property valued at $250,000 the levy is tax mutual, meaning taxes will stay the same at $1,771. For properties in this category valued at $1 million, taxes will increase $5 per year from $7,701 to $7,706.

Agricultural homestead properties valued at $625,000 will also see a tax mutual impact, maintaining a yearly property tax valued at $1,676. For agricultural homestead properties valued higher than $625,000 — as well as for all agricultural non-homestead property — the tax impact will include an increase. Volz said some properties have tax refunds available through the state, including those properties able to receive agricultural credit, approved by the Minnesota Legislature in 2017.

Volz said some key components driving that increase include increased enrollment and utilizing the full amount possible to levy for long-term facilities maintenance funding, which the school board chose to underlevy for the previous year.

The board approved the levy by 4-1, with school board member Jill Marin voting no.

“I don’t support the full levy at the LTFM — long-term facilities maintenance — in addition with those other levies that we have to increase our burden on the taxpayers,” she said.

 

Hammer Complex

District Superintendent Mike Funk told the board he hopes to have the district’s conditional use permit for Hammer Complex approved at the next city council meeting, after it was tabled at the most recent one.

“We have had a number of meetings with (the city administration), between our architects and our facilities folks and city planners, and so a couple issues that came up … I think we’ve worked through this afternoon,” Funk said Monday.

Concerns expressed at the Nov. 26 city council meeting included concerns over parking lot capacity as well as number and location of exits.

The city proposed one exit on Bridge Avenue and one on Hammer Road, which ISG Senior Landscape Architect Amanda Prosser said was intentionally not done in an effort to put pedestrian and student safety at the highest priority.

“We know that the current configuration, there are safety concerns there, and that is why we proposed the layout that we did,” Prosser said.

The district’s plan included one access point off of Bridge Avenue that would serve as both an entrance and exit with a loop for turnaround. This was to prevent “high school students flying through the parking lot,” Funk said.

However, Prosser said the plan did include a road with access from Hammer Road that could be used by maintenance and emergency vehicles. Funk said a potential solution could be barriers to that road could be removed on an as-needed basis for the district to increase traffic flow on high-traffic events of concern for the city.

“We’re working on that and we believe with the plans that we discussed (Monday) afternoon, we’ll be able to get city approval for the conditional use permit,” Funk said.

Although parking spots would be fewer in number with the proposed plan for the Hammer Complex parking lot, Funk said the 280 spaces planned meet needs for the average game and was a decision made to be sensitive to taxpayers, who would have paid more for more spots to be paved. There would be some overflow parking on grass available, Funk said. He said the district and the city also discussed the possibility of a shuttle to run from the Albert Lea High School parking lot to Hammer Field on big games.

Funk said the district hopes to keep changes from the original plan as minimal as possible.

In other action:

• Weekly update emails sent by the superintendent’s office have been suspended after some of those emails containing confidential information were found to be forwarded to people outside of “regular channels.” The suspension was based on advice from the district’s attorney, Funk said, and he intends to review and address procedures to ensure information board members receive is not confidential. Whether the weekly updates will return will be addressed when the new board convenes, Funk said. In the meantime, information that needs to be shared with the board will be done on an as-needed basis.

• The school board approved a resolution awarding the sale of OPEB bonds sold Monday morning. Kelly Smith — a client representative from Springsted, a firm that operates as the district’s financial adviser — said six bidders competed for the bond issuance. The lowest bidder was Robert W. Baird & Co. at just under $4.168 million. The true interest cost came in lower than projected, which means a $58,820 in savings for the district and a decrease in next year’s levy as well as the following year because of that savings, Smith said.

“That is good news for our district,” school board chairman Ken Petersen said.

• The district’s audit report was approved by the board after certified public accountant Greg Larson of Austin’s Hill, Larson & Walth said the audit report was a “clean” one. However, the firm did find a student activities account issued two checks as a scholarship donation, which state guidelines said student activities accounts cannot do directly. Larson said Volz has met with student activities advisers and does not see this as a problem going forward.

“I felt the district had a very good year,” Larson said.

• Albert Lea resident Orville Johnson spoke at the district’s truth in taxation hearing. He asked the district for the percentage of the student body who uses the outside sports facilities. Funk cited several sports as well as high school athletic classes, but did not have the number off the top of his head, he said. Johnson asked the district to follow up with him with an answer.