Ravalli County voters will get to vote Yes or No on a 1.5 mill levy to support the county’s local Literacy Bitterroot program. The program’s High School Equivalency Program graduates an average of 50 students a year. Advocates of the program note that this is more than the Darby and Victor high schools combined.
According to board member Terry Ryan, the local program pays for itself multiple times over by adding over 70 new taxpayers to the community every year. She said that possessing a high school diploma doubles a person’s lifetime earnings and that increases the taxes they pay over the same lifetime period.
The Literacy Bitterroot program, besides helping people, both young and old, achieve a high school diploma, also assists people in college preparatory work as well as individualized instruction for entering the workforce.
Ryan said that consolidation of services into regional districts for funding purposes eliminated the county’s ability to get any direct funding for its own program and that the services being rendered by the regional center in Missoula are not going to meet the county’s needs. She said the local program was always very proactive in its approach, going out and making initial contact with potential students where they live. She said the urban program just waits until the student walks in the door.
“One problem with that,” she said, “is that it requires an employed person to have over two hours’ free time a day to travel, and an unemployed person money for gas as well as a vehicle in good operating condition.”
Ryan had a financial firm in California figure out the tax returns produced by the program’s production of high school diplomas at a cost of $1,000 per student. The results are staggering. They estimate that 70 graduates paying $4,488 per person per year in taxes yields $314,160. That’s a little less than four times the initial investment. Over 40 years, it comes to over 104 times the investment.
The owner of a home valued at $100,000 would pay approximately an additional $2.03 per year for a 1.5 mill levy. The owner of a home valued at $200,000 would pay approximately an additional $4.06 per year for a 1.5 mill levy. The county may not levy more than a 1.5 mills of property tax for the Literacy Levy and the levy will have no durational limit.