Fox C-6 Proposition M Raises Questions for Voters
On April 7 th , residents in the Fox C-6 School District will be voting on a $48 million bond issue, titled Proposition M. The district has pledged to use the bonds to support safety upgrades and facility upgrades around the district, like aging roofs and HVAC units. As someone who has children in the Fox School District, and visits the schools often, these items are needed. One item that needs to be discussed is that bond funds would be used to pay off the lease for Antonia Middle School and some school buses. The district would then be able to reprioritize $0.19 cents currently in the debt service levy and use those funds in the district’s operating budget for day-to-day expenses or facility maintenance.
The term “reprioritize” means the transfer of $0.19 per $100 assessed valuation from the debt service levy to the operating levy, if Prop M is approved. The ballot language is wordy, and doesn’t tell the whole story regarding the overall tax levy that taxpayers pay yearly in real and personal property taxes. The district’s 2025 levy is $4.1867 per $100 assessed valuation. Your property is valued every odd year by the County Assessor’s Office based on the market and value trends each two-year cycle. In state law, you are assessed on 19% of the market value of your property for residential properties, and 33.33% for personal property. (there are other subclasses as well, but we will focus on residential for this). The taxing districts (school, fire, ambulance,, cities, etc.) levy a tax on property owners based on the assessed value of your property. The tax levy is set based on a number of factors. School tax levies have 4 parts: Operating, Teachers, Incidentals, and Debt Service. The Debt Service levy of $0.3901 per $100 assessed valuation would remain the same, and the bonds would be extended until the $48 million for improvements were paid off. Similar to if you had a mortgage for 30 years, and extended the mortgage for another 30 years to borrow money. If the district pays off part of their debt, they can transfer $0.19 per $100 assessed valuation to the Operating Levy portion of their overall tax levy. This will allow them to generate more revenue for district operations.
How will that affect you? Well, each odd year the Assessor’s Office values all properties in the county based on market value and trends. In 1980, the Hancock Amendment to the Missouri Constitution was ratified. Among other things, the Hancock Amendment protected taxpayers from seeing large property tax bill increases by limiting the amount of growth a district can collect to whatever the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as certified to, or 5%, whichever is less. This year, CPI is certified at 2.7%. This means that taxpayers should only see a 2.7% increase in their property tax bill. However, the Hancock Amendment has been watered down by legislative changes and court cases, allowing districts to bypass the intent of the constitutional amendment…that taxpayers only see inflationary growth in their tax bill. By transferring $0.19 per $100 assessed valuation, taxpayers overall tax rate will not decrease per the Hancock Amendment. When reassessment occurs in 2027, taxpayers in the Fox School District may see the full increase of the assessed value increase on their tax bills.
The question voters should ask when deciding on voting for or against this measure is whether or not the district has been good stewards of the tax dollars and bond debt already given by the taxpayers of the district? Should they get more? Or live within their means? While infrastructure improvements are warranted, the increase in operating revenue is problematic. The Fox School District’s 2023 ballot proposition of a $0.92 per $100 assessed valuation increase failed dramatically. If passed, that would have made Fox the highest school tax rate in Jefferson County, and one of the highest in the St. Louis area. In my experience in government the past 15 years, throwing money at problems does not solve problems. It just kicks the can down the road.
Limited, efficient, government services should be the goal of every person in power and every voter that puts those people there. The voters must decide on April 7 th if the current leadership at Fox has those priorities in mind with this ballot proposition.
Local government decisions affect your taxes, roads, schools, and economic future, but most residents never hear about them.
The Jefferson Review breaks down the meetings, votes, and policy debates shaping Jefferson County.
Stay informed about the decisions happening in your community.