T-R photo by Trevor Babcock Marshalltown Community School Board Secretary Paulette Newbold presents the school’s certified budget for the 2022 fiscal year.

The Marshalltown Community School Board published an estimated budget for the 2022 fiscal year at the Monday meeting, established a property tax rate and moved to use an income surtax.

The instructional support program, a program allowing school districts to increase programming by 10 percent of regular costs, is funded entirely through property taxes. The program is allowed to be funded entirely through property taxes or by a combination of property taxes and income surtaxes which would lower the potential property tax rate.

The school board is moving forward to utilize a 2 percent income surtax to fund part of the instructional support program, bringing the property tax rate in the estimated budget for the 2022 fiscal year to $18.14 per $1,000 taxable valuation. If the school board chose not to utilize the income surtax, the property tax rate would have been $18.55 per $1,000 taxable valuation.

Marshalltown Community School District is the only school district in Marshall County to not implement an income surtax.

“You might be asking why we are considering this,” Marshalltown Community School Board Secretary Paulette Newbold said. “Property taxes are regressive in that they take a larger percentage of income from low income groups than from high income groups. Income taxes are progressive, they take a larger percentage of income from high income groups than from low income groups.”

Marshalltown Community School Board member Jan McGinnis said she heard concern about increasing property tax rates from Marshalltown residents, especially among the elderly population.

“These are people who have paid off their homes and need to keep their expenses stable,” she said. “This would be one way to let them know we are listening to their concerns. It’s not going to make a huge difference in property taxes, but it does send the message that we are listening.”

A public hearing for the budget is set at the board meeting on April 5.

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Call Trevor Babcock at 641-753-6611 or tbabcock@timesrepublican.com