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HARTINGTON — A new Nebraska law mandating the state pay $1,500 toward the education of every public school student has helped Hartington- Newcastle Public Schools reduce its tax request to local taxpayers.
The Hartington-Newcastle school district is asking for 9.9 percent less in property taxes for this year’s budget thanks to the new law.
“We’re trying to keep property taxes down the best we can,” HNS Supt. A.J. Johnson said. “We’re happy we were able to ask less from property taxpayers. Hopefully, we can do the same next year.”
The HNS School Board voted unanimously Monday to approve the $15.3 million budget.
Last year, the District requested a levy of .54943. This year the District is requesting a levy of .49530 per $100 of assessed value.
This year’s levy would have been even lower had it not been for the current elementary school addition project. This year’s budget adds an additional .13248 for the building fund to the general fund levy of .36282.
Last year, the school district put $6,166,872 into the building fund. An additional $4,681,750 is expected to be generated for the building fund this year under the new budget.
“The general fund levy is going down quite a bit because of state aid; the overall levy is not going down quite as much because of the building project. Next year, we should see the benefits of that because we won’t have the building expenses,” Johnson said.
The last time the levy was this low was back in the 2020-21 budget year when HNS had a levy of .4913.
Last year’s budget asked property taxpayers for $5,337,732 in property taxes for the school district’s general fund and an additional $1,135,723 for the building fund. This year, the budget calls for only $4,603,679 in property taxes for the general fund. An additional $1,681,027 is needed for the building fund.
Supt. Johnson said the extra funds are needed for the elementary school building project and for increases in expenses brought on from everything from wage and insurance increases to price spikes from inflation. The school district also added one new full-time teacher this year, he said.
