By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph voters next week will decide an issue designed to raise teacher pay in the St. Joseph School District.
Proposition S on the Tuesday ballot will provide a flat, $2,750 raise to St. Joseph public school teachers as well as all staff in the district.
Friends of the St. Joseph School District co-chair, Melanie Barnes, says St. Joseph must become more competitive in teacher pay.
“We are competing and losing qualified teachers and support staff towards our surrounding districts and our surrounding school districts, whether they’re in Buchanan County or if they’re across the way in Kansas. We’re losing teachers to Savannah. We’re losing teachers to Cameron. We’re losing teachers to Platte City and Mid-Buch,” Barnes tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “In order to be competitive and retain qualified and excellent teachers and support staff, we have to pay them.”
Proposition S would raise the property tax by 59 cents on every $100 of assessed valuation. The campaign reports that increase would total nearly $19 dollars a month on a $200,000 house, or approximately $226 annually. If approved, the operating levy for the St. Joseph School District would rise to $4.91.
Proposition S also proposes eliminating the Proposition C rollback. The state of Missouri approved Proposition C in 1982, adding a cent to the state sales and use tax for schools and highways in exchange for a rollback in local property taxes. Most Missouri school districts have abandoned that formula.
“Ninety percent of Missouri school districts have already canceled or waived this rollback and gotten that property tax back into the school system,” Barnes says. “So, 90% of other school districts have already done this. And so, in order to be competitive and compete with that additional pay and base pay, we need to do it, too.”
Competition is one theme being struck by the Friends of the St. Joseph School District campaign. Another is community growth.
Barnes says improving public schools is vital in efforts to attract people to St. Joseph.
“Whether they’re coming in retirement age or coming in just out of college, in order to get people to come in and move into this district, we have to have a strong community to support other initiatives; our parkway system, other things. I mean, that comes from taxpayer dollars and in order to, again, increase our taxpayer dollars, we have to have people moving into this area and having a strong school district is one way to help do that.”
Proposition S needs a simple majority to pass. It will be on the August 6th ballot.
Click HERE for the St. Joseph School District fact sheet on Proposition S.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.