MARION — While property tax rates will drop in the Cedar Rapids and Clear Creek Amana school districts, the Linn-Mar district continues to cope with a small tax base and a high property tax levy rate.
The school district’s tax rate will barely budge in fiscal 2019, according to school board documents, and is set at $17.37 per $1,000 of taxable assessed value.
But Linn-Mar plans to ask voters to increase the school district’s property tax levy in a September bond vote, district spokesman Matthew May said, as the district of about 7,500 students experiences rapid growth.
The district is “currently circulating petitions to call for a bond vote” on Sept. 11, May said. If put on the ballot and approved by at least 60 percent of voters in the district, the district’s rate would increase by 65 cents — to about $18.02 per $1,000 taxable assessed value.
The increase would amount to an annual increase of about $71 for the owner of a $200,000 property, May said.
The bond would finance the construction of two new fifth- and sixth- grade intermediate schools.
The district failed to persuade voters to approve a measure last September that would have incrementally increased the rate to $19.
“Linn-Mar’s taxable valuation per student is lower than the state average, which results in a higher tax levy because our levy has to ‘work harder’ to generate the same amount of funding per student,” May said in an email.
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