There will not be a school tax increase as originally anticipated by the Crittenden County Board of Education.
During a special tax hearing last Thursday night, the board unanimously approved keeping the current tax structure this year, but board members Red Howton and Phyllis Orr acknowledged the need to increase school revenue.
After some consideration, Superintendent John Belt said he reversed his recommendation that the board raise taxes from 40.2 cents per $100 of assessment to 40.8 cents.
Board member Chris Cook said he received only limited comments from the public, but does not support raising taxes until the board undergoes a thorough review of its finances.
“I don’t feel like we can ask our community to contribute more to the educational system until we have done a thorough review of the finances and cost structure of the school system,” Cook said.
Belt said the financial pressures on school districts are constant, citing annual cost increases of pay raises, utilities and transportation. For example, he said, last year the district funded nearly $45,000 in rank pay raises for teachers.
Belt made his original proposal for a four-percent tax increase based on rising costs and decreases in state revenue. However, after discussion with board members, Belt said he decided an internal review of finances should be done before a tax increase is proposed.
“I believe we should take the four percent increase to keep up and give the children of this district the education they deserve,” Howton said before he and the other board members voted unanimously against taking an increase.
“I agree,” Orr said. “There are many needs for the children of the district and what the (increase) would generate wouldn’t begin to cover all of those needs.”
Yet, Orr also voted to leave rates alone.
The 2006 school tax will remain the same for real estate and personal property – 40.2 cents per $100 off assessed value. Last year, the same tax rate generated $1.1 million of revenue.
The school board has not raised taxes in three years. In that time, diesel has increased 160 percent; natural gas 105 percent and state and federal appropriations to the school district have decreased, officials say.
“The board had the luxury of discretionary income last year and a little this year... so we can withstand the pressures this time, barring any unseen emergencies,” Belt said.
Dycusburg man builds birdhouses
A map depicting Kentucky’s 120 counties is laid out in Jim Chaney’s garage.
The terrain of 103 counties is colored in with pink highlighter, as Chaney waits for a delivery and a chance to color in the remaining 13.
The map isn’t an element of a travel itinerary, it’s his method of record-keeping.
Chaney’s custom birdhouses made from license plates are all the rage these days. And between efforts to fill his garage shelves with a birdhouse made with license plates from each Kentucky county, the Crittenden Countian is taking special orders from around the region.
Chaney took up carpentry after 21 years in the Army and began making woodcrafts like potato boxes and checkerboards at his home near Dycusburg. It’s rather coincidental how his Kentucky license plate craft came to be – on the West coast.
“My son bought a birdhouse made from Carlisle County (Kentucky) license plate in California last year for Christmas,” Chaney says.
“I found it in a store for about $35 I think, and I thought, ‘Dad can make it better than that,’” says Chaney’s son Vic who lives in San Francisco.
And the U.S. Army veteran began his new craft. Vic sent emails to each of the county clerks in Kentucky requesting discarded license plates and began buying boxes of them on eBay. Soon they began to trickle in, though some clerks have refused to give Chaney old plates.
“Some of them think everybody is a convict and won’t give me any license plates,” said the 71-year-old. “I’ve got a license plate on my car, I don’t need one,” he says with a laugh while sitting in his front yard fidgeting with an empty coffee cup.
His wife Joann is the secretary for his mini business, keeping up with requests for birdhouses, plates people mail him, the date they’re needed for gifts and reimbursing postage for people donating plates.
“I don’t have many Crittenden County plates,” he said, but revealed a stockpile inside his garage of ready-to-sell birdhouses made from McCracken, Henderson and Lyon county license plates.
Lining the shelves in his garage is his collection of Kentucky birdhouses, neatly alphabetized with spaces left for the counties he needs to complete the set. Cost is $15 each for a birdhouse.
Word of mouth has helped in his search for plates, and he’s sold a few too.
“A lady from Paducah who works in the courthouse sent him a Purple Heart plate her son got after he was wounded, and we sent her that birdhouse,” Joann says.
“I give away more than I sell,” he admits. “The first year I’m marketing them and then I’ll sell them.”
Chaney’s birdhouses are fashioned out of painted wooden frames with the county name centered on the bottom front of the house. A little perch made from a golf tee sticks out of the house, looking just like a nose protruding from the smiling sun on Kentucky’s retired license plates.
While he waits for the 13 plates to complete his collection, he’s already started thinking about what he’ll do next – he says he may use the stockpile of plates he’s purchased on eBay and start a collection of state plates.
But he admits, he doesn’t want to be too busy. “I am retired,” he says.
Tolly new health directors
Jim Tolley’s vast experience in public health landed him the job of the Pennyrile District Health Department director in June. He replaced longtime director Raymond Giannini of Princeton.
The Fredonia resident has worked in public health programs for 17 years, 13 with the Kentucky Department for Public Health. There, he was a food safety specialist, consulting with large food manufacturing firms conducting sanitation inspections and nutritional surveillance and monitoring product labeling.
He was a health environmentalist with the Pennyrile District Health Department 15 years ago, so in a sense his career has come full circle.
As director of the five-county district, Tolley directs programs and oversees daily operations of the district’s 42 employees.
“Every day is a new day,” he said. “We offer multiple services to the public and serve the public’s interest in health issues. It’s rewarding because I’m serving the public.”
He holds several certifications from the Food and Drug Administration, including bioterrorism response in food, water and other biohazards, and is a statewide trainer of local health environmentalists in food and sanitation programs.
He’s a Livingston County native who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Murray State University. His wife Meg is a science teacher at Livingston Central, and their son Will is a second grader at Crittenden Elementary.