Education Matters February 11 2022

by Education Matters

Posted on February 11, 2022

To the Patrons of Littlefield ISD:

What a great turnout at our community meeting on Thursday, February 10. I would like to thank each of you who took time out of your busy schedule to attend this important meeting. Kudos to our citizens task force who were in attendance and to our Parkhill and Specialized Public Finance folks who answered questions from the community. Our task force has made a recommendation to proceed with the calling of a Bond Election and it will be voted on by the Board of Trustees at our regularly scheduled Board Meeting on Thursday, February 17 at 7:00 PM. Should they vote to proceed, we can expect early voting to begin on Monday, April 25 and end on Tuesday, May 3. Regular polls will open on Saturday, May 7 at 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

To approve the sale of General Obligation Bonds in the authorized maximum amount of $ 41.5 million dollars, that funding would be used for the design construction and outfitting of a new state of the art academic high school facility to be located where our softball field is currently located. We would be moving our softball field out to where the football stadium and baseball field is currently sitting.  Included with that new academic high school would be a first-class “Career and Technical Education Center.” The existing high school would be expanded, upgraded, and become our junior high facility for grades 6-8. Additional facility improvements would be accomplished to the extent that the remaining funds would sustain.

As you can see, we are taking steps to improve our aging facilities, etc. Our current tax rate is .9189 cents per $ 100.00 of valuation.  If a bond is passed, it would require an additional .48 to .50 cents to meet our debt obligation. So basically, your tax rate would be in the neighborhood of $ 1.3989 to $ 1.4189. For comparison, this rate is consistent with many of our peer districts who have passed bond elections and incurred debt service to improve their facilities. Parkhill has provided a calculator to see how much of an impact it would have on your tax bill. You can find the calculator at: www.lfdisd.org. Also, a reminder that if you are 65 years of age or older, your taxes are frozen and this will not have an effect on your tax bill. 

It is important to understand the timing of this proposition because it is tied very closely to the increased tax revenue afforded by law for our current 313 agreement (Continental Dairy) and the coming 313 agreement (Yellow House Wind Farm). These taxable assets will depreciate over time, thereby not allowing the District to access funding for them unless we act early in the depreciation timeline for those agreements. We must act now to take advantage of these additional tax revenues to improve our school facilities!

If you have any questions, please feel free to stop by the office or call 385-4150.

PROUD TO BE A WILDCAT!