Woodbridge School District holding a current expense referendum
BRIDGEVILLE, Del. – Woodbridge School District needs your help in order to keep with up the demand of students and costs in their four schools.
In order to do that, they need residents of the district to vote in their favor during a current expense referendum. The district hasn’t asked for additional funds from the community since 2006, but we’re told now it’s long overdue.
Their Superintendent Heath Chasanov says, “We understand that people don’t want their taxes raised and we tried to hold off as long as we could but we just have to at this point.”
We’re told there is a structural issue in their current expenses and they’ve taken on costs in the past few years without additional revenue. One of those areas is transportation. “We now pay 10% of the total cost, it used to be 100% by the state, we need a revenue source for that,” Chasanov tells us.
Another is the brand new Woodbridge High School. “We also built a new high school in 2014 with no additional revenue and so the costs of the utilities and maintenance has caught up to us, so it’s really just getting back even to get caught up to where we need to be,” Chasanov states.
But those aren’t the only additions. Since the last referendum, the school district has seen their enrollment jump up by 30%. This growth in student population brings additional costs but they aren’t receiving the same level of funding to keep up.
That’s why both Senator Brian Pettyjohn, who covers this district along with Woodbridge, want residents to vote ‘yes’ when they head to the polls.
Senator Pettyjohn says, “If you think Woodbridge has done a good job and personally, I think they have, they then they should be getting this referendum approved.”
On Tuesday, there will be two places. You can vote at either Woodbridge Middle School or at the Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center. You can vote starting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. all you have to do is show you’re 18 years old or older and that you live in the Woodbridge School District.
If the referendum passes, it would cost each taxpayer an additional $75-$85 annually.
