T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Marshalltown Community School District Superintendent Theron Schutte and board members Sara Faltys and Leah Stanley listen to a presentation during the regular Monday meeting. The board approved a property tax rate increase and awarded more contracts for the Reimagine Miller project.

The Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education approved the 2026-27 certified budget at the regular Monday meeting, including the proposed property tax rate of $17.96 per $100,000 of property valuation.

Executive Director of Finance & Operations Randy Denham told the board there were no changes in the budget from what they saw at the April 6 meeting.

“[The property tax rate] is an increase of $2.01 from our current rate,” he said. “If you recall, it’s . . . what we need to do for our [special education] deficit as well as our excess ELL (English Language Learner) funding that is not funded through the state. That is what is driving that increase for this year.”

Board member Leah Stanley asked Denham if the district had dropped the tax rate the last few years and if they were going back up to more than what it was, but less than it was historically.

“We’re still lower than what our high was a few years ago,” he told her. “I want to say the high we were at was $21 at one point. So, yeah, we did have to come back up. We were lowering it where we could, based off of the information we had at the time, based off of projections and where spending was trending at that time. As things came to fruition and things change, we’ve had to adjust and here’s where we’re at.”

Board member Sara Faltys asked how the programs, which the district is required to have, would be paid for if the board did not approve the increase.

Denham told her it would take a hit to the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) general fund. To maintain the current protected financial metrics, he said they would have to look at additional budget reductions. Stanley then asked how much was cut from the budget this year.

“We did $2 million in budget reductions,” he said.

In other business:

The school board members approved four additional contracts for the Reimagine Miller project. Those awarded were $330,648 to H2I Group for theater seating; $1.2 million for Gopher Stage Lighting for theater equipment; $370,000 to KONE, Inc. for hydraulic elevators and; $132,870 to Carroll Seating Company for gymnasium equipment. Ground was broken for the $106 million renovation and construction project last week.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.