Dear Editor,
I attended the informative community meeting about the upcoming Mill Levy vote for Shepherd Schools on March 20th. Jeff Kanning from Collaborative Design Architects described the budget and project to group of about 50 community members and fielded questions. My family ranches in the school district and my children, Miriam (three) and Angus (one) will be the third generation to be raised and educated here. My father and his siblings education started in a country school funded and organized by their ranching community. We are proud to continue to contribute through our property taxes to support Shepherd schools and know that our return on investment’s better than it could have ever been at Marsh country school. We support this mill levy to secure the future of our community’s children as we navigate a complicated economic future.
The vote’s set for May 7th for a $17.9 million bond to be paid back over 20 years. D.A. Davidson Senior Vice President of Public Banking Bridget Ekstrom, an expert on school bonds for the State of Montana, calculated this bond amounts to 39% of the maximum our local tax base could support. A significant portion it will be necessary to deal with acute crisis problems and will be spent regardless through tax increases, (permissive levies), that don’t require voter approval. Our community elected school board carefully evaluated the situation and proposed an appropriate, forward looking plan and budget to solve immediate issues and expand capacity for the future. I believe it’s better to spend this full amount now to achieve project synergy, avoid construction cost inflation and take advantage of historically low interest rates that are bound to rise in the life of this bond.
Other communities in the area including Red Lodge, Roundup, Huntley and Lockwood have made recent investments in their schools responding to similar incentives that our school board evaluated. Ultimately families with children have a choice of where they buy real estate and enroll students. With commencement of the Heights interstate bypass project, the Shepherd area’s in a great position to benefit from commuter driven growth. We need to come together and invest now in the heart of our community to fully take advantage of that growth to ensure our school and students stay competitive.
Weareshepherd.org is a great resource that some of our neighbors have put together that both outlines all the benefits of this project, making it easy to determine how the mill levy will effect your tax bill. Some benefits to the students and community members that excite me are substantial new classroom space, expansion of Career Technical Education (CTE/modern shop class) space, a consolidated cardio/weight room with possible access for general community and the “Mustang room” for multipurpose meeting and event use. Bringing the Elementary, Middle and High School students one roof and consolidating all school and district offices at the current high school entrance makes the whole school more efficient and secure. It also frees up the district office building for use as a space for Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch to offer community based services. With our support Shepherd school can become a place that not only supports traditional academics and athletics but involves the whole community in a venue to support and guide our families to prosperity in the 21st century. Additional meetings are scheduled for April 15th and May 1st in the High School multipurpose room at 6:30 pm.
Ressa Charter
Shepherd, MT
