Fremont-Mills Voters Will Decide Fate Of PPEL Extension

The Fremont-Mills School District will ask voters to extend a tax levy it uses to maintain the school’s buildings, make improvements and purchase school equipment.

On Nov. 2, Fremont-Mills’ will put its Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) to voters for a 10-year renewal. The current PPEL, which is set to expire June 30, 2022, raises $412,000 annually for the district. The measure would need a simple 50 percent majority to pass.

“This isn’t a new tax,” said Fremont-Mills Superintendent Dave Gute. “It’s something we’ve used for a while in and around our district.”

For district residents, the PPEL represents a tax of $1.34 per $1,000 of property valuation. To level out the burden of that figure,  the district has elected to take 62 cents of that for the school from property taxes. The remaining .72 cents is generated by income surtax the district.

Gute said that split is the school board’s way to show how responsible it is with the district’s monies and to essentially divide the tax among homeowners and renters.

“It’s not quite 50/50 on property but it’s to show  everyone is responsible for helping pay taxes to pay for the school. This money is used to buy buses, fix concrete around the building, HVAC and other minor or even major facility needs that we need.”

The money cannot be used for teacher salaries. In the past the district has used the pool of money to fund technology purchases and classroom upgrades.

The PEPL is especially important for the district now, Gute said, after it used money from its Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) fund for the construction of the building’s new auditorium and early childhood development center completed in 2019. SAVE is funded through a one-cent sales tax levy.

“The SAVE fund money can be used in a similar fashion but 60 percent of those dollars every year are going to pay off the bonds on those facilities improvements,” he said. “It (the PPEL) is a tax that pretty much helps our district have the money to make the necessary improvements and replace things from time to time.”

The fund, Gute said, is an important one for the district as budgets shrink and the cost of maintaining schools goes up.

“It’s something we use almost weekly if not daily,” Gute said of the PPEL fund, adding the district is in the process of replacing the heat pumps in each classroom. “That work is being paid for out of this. That money sort of protects our educational dollars, our general fund money we use to pay teacher salaries and bus drivers and our heating bills and gas bills. The PPEL is extremely important.”