District 11 board agrees to move Mill Levy Override governance plan into draft policy; directors to refine language

Board members at a District 11 work session agreed by a show of thumbs to shift the Mill Levy Override (MLO) governance plan into a formal board policy and tasked Directors Trisha Nelson and Jason Ott to revise the draft and take it back to the MLO Citizens Oversight Committee for review before returning it to the board.

Treasurer Trisha Nelson introduced the proposal, saying the governance plan has become outdated and that “the board the board's role is to govern over the district, and we do that through policy.” Nelson said the committee that oversees MLO funds approved moving the governance plan into policy at its March 18 meeting, and she argued the move would centralize the requirements voters tied to the MLO into a single document to reduce confusion when staff and committee membership change.

The MLO oversight committee’s chair, Chip X, described the plan’s history: the 2000 mill levy ballot attached a spending plan to the election; later levies and amendments led to a 2017…