Would Local Tax Dollars Stay Local?

If the Missoula County Public Schools' (MCPS) $70 million high school bond passes, will tax dollars from the local area be spent locally or will they be spent on schools in Missoula? That question was raised at the Oct. 12 Seeley Lake Community Council meeting where MCPS Superintendent Mark Thane was on hand to present information and answer questions.

Thane acknowledged that there were pockets of homes with higher values that would pay more than average but he was unable to answer if the Seeley-Swan area is one of those.

Based on tax information from the Department of Revenue the answer is: Yes, if the bond passes, taxes collected in the Seeley-Swan area will be funding school improvements in Missoula.

If the bond passes, Seeley-Swan High School (SSHS) would receive $2.2 million in upgrades including roof repairs, new boiler, technology upgrades and a stage. That's 3.14 percent of the $70 million bond coming back to SSHS.

MCPS high school district has a total taxable value for 2015 of $193,582,627.

There is no breakdown in that value to show how much can be attributed to SSHS. However, the elementary districts of Seeley Lake Elementary (SLE) and Swan Valley Elementary (SVE) lie wholly inside of MCPS's high school district and feed their students to SSHS.

The combined 2015 taxable value for SLE and SVE is $10,694,817. This represents 5.52 percent of MCPS' total taxable value.

At 5.52 percent of the tax base, $3.85 million will be raised by local taxpayers, while $2.2 million will be spent locally.

This does not include any of the tax base in the Sunset/Greenough elementary district. Sunset has a taxable value of $1,139,199 and represents 0.59 percent of MCPS' taxable value. Sunset feeds students to SSHS but the school bus route for Hellgate High School extends into the district making it harder to attribute its tax value to one school or the other.