School District sets telephone survey on millage loss

Four hundred people in the Van Buren Public Schools district will be getting telephone calls soon from a professional polling company to ask them why the millage failed.
The district’s 1.13-mill Sinking Fund renewal was turned down by voters on May 5 on a 3,415 – 4,514 vote.
On Monday, at the beginning of the work/study session of the Board of Education, School Supt. Michael Van Tassel recommended a poll of people in the district to find out the reason the millage was rejected.
Although the board cannot make decisions during the work/study session, it gave Van Tassel its unofficial blessing to call the company in the morning to set up the poll as soon as possible.
Van Tassel said the Epic MRA firm will do 15-minute polls of 400 people with results having a 5% or less margin of error. Cost is from $15,000 to $20,000, Van Tassel said.
He reminded the board that he has authority to spend up to $23,000 without the board’s approval, so he could proceed with the project without an official vote.
Van Tassel said he has talked to people in the community and some thought the vote was no because the state’s Proposal One was the only other thing on the ballot and 80% of the people said no to that.
Other voters told him the last sentence in the ballot question, “A portion of the revenue may be captured by the Van Buren Township Downtown Development Authority,” offended them because they didn’t want the township to get any of that money.
Van Tassel said the wording was drawn up by lawyers. He said he talked to VBT Clerk Leon Wright about it and he said Wright told him it probably doesn’t have to be on there because “it’s already been paid.”
“It appears we will not have to include that wording next time,” Van Tassell said.
“The community has voted and spoken,” Van Tassel said, adding to just put the same question back on the ballot is not a good idea.
He said his recommendation is that the board do this poll and gather good information from the community about what the community is willing to support and what it will not support.
Van Tassel said the poll is a four-to-six-week process and then the board can have a special work/study session to discuss the results. The special work/study could be set in June and then a resolution could be passed and sent in to the county at the end of July and give the board a month to think about it and discuss what they want to do until the August deadline for the November election.
Later in the meeting he said it might be more like a three-to-four-week process, which would bring the results back in June.
“We’ll find out things we have to do better and news we need to get out,” Van Tassel said.
Trustee Sherry Frazier suggested the board get together with another group in the community, possibly the library, so the cost could be shared.
Board members pointed out that they want answers specific to the school district and the library district has different boundaries than the school district.
“I’m all for it,” Frazier said of the poll. “We need to get information from our stakeholders.”
“Short of doing this, we won’t get a snapshot,” Van Tassel said. “Why people voted and why people didn’t vote … There was only about a 20% turnout. That’s not even our parents … “
He said the board can choose to disagree with the results of the poll, “You’re the board.”
“We don’t want to guess and then be wrong,” said board president Brent Mikulski.
“We can find out not only those who voted no, but why people didn’t vote,” said board vice president Martha Toth.
Van Tassel said some may say they don’t like paying taxes, or “I was out of town,” or “I didn’t like the last sentence.”
He said VBT is talking of a police/fire millage vote in November.
“Instead of getting an Ouija Board out” we can do this, Van Tassel said of the polling.
“We may not like what they say,” he warned the board.
Frazier said the people might say, “No way” to the Sinking Fund.
Van Tassel said the board could consider reducing the amount to .5 mill or .25 mill. Members of the public will be asked what they are willing to support.
“We’ll find out if the community is supportive of bringing it again,” he said.
“One problem is the name,” said Toth. “The Sinking Fund. Sinking in is bad.”
“It’s been a challenge in the past,” Van Tassel said, noting if the board puts a proposal or modified proposal on the ballot a citizen committee can be formed in early August.
He said the board and district employees cannot serve on the committee, but he can have a limited service.
He said for the last election he thought they got the information out, but he has seen attacks on Facebook on some of the board members.
“I’m not going to tell you polls are perfect. They’re not,” Van Tassel said.
But, he said, the district has to pay for elections.
“We’ll find out for sure where we sit, then form a community committee, and file the paperwork,” Van Tassel said.