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School tax rate dips from annual meeting
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MONROE - An amended budget for the Monroe school district shows lower-than-expected state aid and a slightly lower tax rate than the school board approved at the annual meeting last week.

Business Administrator Ron Olson presented the amended 2015-16 budget at a board meeting Monday.

Updated enrollment figures show a total of 2,450 students enrolled in the district for 2015, which is higher than the number reported last week but is still a drop from last year.

State general aid came in about $95,500 less than in previous estimates. The district will have to make some of that up in the tax levy, but thanks to a modest 1.08-percent rise in property valuations, it won't make much of an impact on local property taxes.

Olson reported an increase in the total tax levy from last year by 1.5 percent. The school district is set to levy $11,072,291 for the 2015-16 school year.

He noted that the tax levy impacts the various towns in the district

differently, based on their particular change in property valuation. Some municipalities see a larger jump

this year while others might jump next year, because municipalities

re-value their property in different years, Olson said. Property valuations rose by an average of 1.08 percent across the 11 municipalities in the district.

In the amended budget, property owners will pay a tax rate of about $10.70 per $1,000 of a home's value. That's a .42-percent increase from last year's $10.65 tax rate.

The owner of a $75,000 house would owe about $802 in school-related taxes, compared to $799 last year. The owner of a $200,000 house would owe about $2,139, up from $2,130 last year.

General fund expenditures remain at about $28.3 million in the amended budget. Olson said the district's deficit will be $840,216.