WEATHERSFIELD Levy OK brings brighter forecast

The school district will still need voter renewal of a five-year emergency levy, officials say.
MINERAL RIDGE -- The Weathersfield school district's finances in the treasurer's latest five-year forecast show a substantial improvement over the previous one.
The improvement is because of voter approval Nov. 2 of a 5.5-mill, five-year emergency operating levy.
Treasurer Angela Lewis' revised five-year forecast this month, compared to the Oct. 20 forecast, projects that the district will remain solvent until June 30, 2008.
Lewis must update her five-year forecasts for the state monthly because the district is under a state fiscal watch.
In a previous report to the board of education, Lewis had projected the following five-year forecast:
UEnd of June, 2005, $416,608 in reserve.
UEnd of 2006, negative $30,387.
UEnd of 2007, negative $910,181.
UEnd of 2008, negative $2.186 million.
UEnd of 2009, negative $3.782 million.
Approval of the 5.5-mill levy, which will generate $568,168 annually for five years, has changed those projections to:
UEnd of fiscal year 2005, $892,028.
UEnd of 2006, $739,785.
UEnd of 2007, $351,127.
UEnd of 2008, negative $437,511.
UFiscal year 2009, negative $1.550 million.
Lewis, however, stressed that the district still needs voter renewal of an existing five-year emergency levy that was originally passed in 1996. The levy has already been renewed once, and she said the board is considering placing it on the May 2005 ballot.
The board will have three chances in 2005 to gain approval of the emergency levy -- in May, August and November. The issue is a 4.8-mill, five-year levy that generates $418,120 a year. It was originally passed with the purpose of using the funds for books, buses and buildings.
The levy helped to fund the hiring of a new guidance counselor, a nurse, new buses and an updating purchase cycle for textbooks. She also explained that levy can be used for general operating money. She said the district had to dip into the fund both last year. She said she transferred $200,000 from the levy fund into the general fund last year.
She cautiously projected that she doesn't anticipate having to use any of the funds this year for general operating.
RMI issue
One outstanding issue for the district is whether it will have to repay two years' worth of personal tangible property tax to RMI Titanium Inc. No decision has been made by the state on that matter, raised by RMI when it revamped its tax commitment in 2003 and the district lost $621,000 annually.
RMI's accounting firm re-evaluated its personal tangible property tax, and claimed exemptions on its inventory because it is used for government military services. That is the basis for an RMI request for repayment of what it sees as an overpayment of taxes totaling $434,396 for two years, in 2000 and 2001.
No allocation for this payment has been included in the forecasts prepared by the treasurer.
Lewis said in her latest five-year forecast that if the district does win renewal of the 4.8-mill levy, it could potentially avert a deficit until 2009. She added, however, that projecting until 2009 isn't always accurate.