Russell County superintendent urges countywide sales tax to fund school bond
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Summary
Jordan Perez, superintendent of USD 407, told the committee that a countywide sales tax — proposed at about 1¢ — would have produced nearly double the revenue of a city-only tax and allowed a larger school bond; lacking permission, the district scaled a bond down to $13.5 million.
Jordan Perez, superintendent of Russell County USD 407, told a legislative committee that his district has not had a facilities bond for 67 years and that many buildings lack modern HVAC systems.
Perez said his steering committee considered city and county sales-tax models and found a countywide sales tax would generate nearly twice the revenue of a city-only option because it would capture spending by pass-through shoppers and neighboring communities. "A countywide sales tax would bring in...nearly double the revenue as a city sales tax," Perez said.
He described extensive local outreach and negotiations with adjacent districts to allocate any countywide proceeds by student population; Perez said his group modeled splits so neighboring districts (Central Plains, Sylvan Lucas, Natoma) would receive a share proportional to pupils from Russell County.
Because countywide authorization was not available, the district scaled a proposed project from roughly $30 million to a $13.5 million bond package while keeping similar property-tax burden scenarios. Perez said the community repeatedly told the steering committee it “cannot put this on property taxes alone.”
Committee members asked practical questions: whether Hays' successful school sales-tax vote included a sunset and how multi-county districts would participate. Perez said Hays' vote appeared to have a term (he recalled a 10-year period) and described meetings with neighboring districts to negotiate equitable splits.
Next steps: Perez encouraged consideration of local-option countywide authority for dedicated school projects and offered to return with further details if the committee seeks implementation models.