Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The Iowa Legislature’s push to limit yearly growth of property taxes, signed by the governor in the last week of the session, includes a change that affects school bond issues.

Until now, a bond referendum could be held at any of five dates in a two-year cycle, as seen on this page from the Department of Education about the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy. PPELs are often paired with revenue purpose statements, which spell out how a school is to spend sales tax money. This law will result in either their separation or a delay in the latter if the district wants to keep them together. A PPEL is separate from a bond issue.

A number of districts, including North Tama, had votes in March where the only thing being voted on was a bond issue. Green Mountain-Garwin had a PPEL, revenue purpose statement, and a school board vacancy.

Now those March and September bond votes are things of the past. Here’s what House File 718 says on the timing: “For any political subdivision of this state, if the special election is in whole or in part for the question of issuing bonds or other indebtedness, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.” A consolidation vote may still take place on the other specified dates.

The bill text, which does not set an odd/even rule, doesn’t match the Legislative Services Agency’s fiscal note issued April 24. Separately, that LSA note points out that local governments, including schools, will incur costs under the new rule that every registered voter must be mailed a paper copy of the text of the bond measure. (The bill text includes an exception to the “unfunded mandate” law.)

Following a reader’s letter, I dug in on the history of the Clearfield school for the 1982-92 school years. It got so complicated I had to make a spreadsheet. The Clearfield district, on the Taylor/Ringgold county line, dissolved in 2014.

• I was a year off on Clearfield’s last year for a high school; it was 1983-84 (Mount Ayr Record-News, 5/17/84). In that year, Clearfield and Diagonal had a junior high sharing arrangement, with seventh grade in Diagonal and eighth grade in Clearfield (MARN, 4/21/83).
• For 1984-85, grades 5-9 were in Diagonal and 9-12 in Clearfield except for physics, chemistry, and shop classes in Diagonal (MARN, 2/16/84). That was reversed for 1985-86, with 6-9 in Clearfield and 10-12 in Diagonal (MARN, 4/11/85).
• Clearfield switched to sending all students in 9-12 to Lenox for one year, 1986-87 (MARN, 12/26/85). The high school situation remained unsettled and ended up in a “first of its kind” program that allowed students to go to Diagonal, Mt. Ayr, or Lenox (MARN, 6/25/87). This arrangement appears to have remained in place despite various feints toward other combinations (Lenox Time Table, 7/1/87; LTT, 10/9/94; LTT, 4/23/97). 
• Probably not helping: A superintendent quitting after one year — and announcing it on July 30 (MARN, 8/7/86).
• Diagonal stopped sending grades 6-8 to Clearfield in 1991, resulting in Clearfield extending its three-way-split open enrollment to grades 7-12 (MARN, 1/24/91).
• At one point, a Clearfield-Lenox deal died for, among many other things, “political and social problems between the two school districts” (Clearfield Chronicle, 11/2/94).
• This does make the crazy-quilt carve-up of Clearfield in 2014 a little more understandable. The extension of the Diagonal district into the town of Clearfield itself by using 170th Street came late in the process (Diagonal Progress, 7/25/13).

Pomeroy-Palmer merged with Pocahontas Area a decade ago. The building in Pomeroy has been vacant nearly as long, except that the gymnasium has remained in use for practices*. But Pocahontas Area doesn’t want the facility anymore, KCCI reports, and the city of Pomeroy has been given 90 days to determine whether the building will become city property or be torn down.

Pomeroy currently has a small community center near downtown on the north side of town.

*Headline in tab said “School building used for practice gym faces uncertain future”.