Why can’t Ferndale just raise more money through a local levy?
While the voters who approve our levies are very generous, school districts are limited by state law in how much they can raise through local levies. The “levy lid” restricts Ferndale from collecting more than 26% of its revenue from the levy. In addition, since our current four-year levy runs through 2010, we cannot revise our levy until at least 2011. Our levies are based upon a set dollar amount, not a percentage of property value. If property values increase more than we estimated when voters approved the latest four-year levy rate in 2006, then we must lower that rate and only collect the actual dollar amount amount approved by voters.
