The Iowa Legislature approved the addition of a local option sales tax that could be used for the county or for schools early in the 1990s.

At that time, it needed approval from a majority of voters in the county to be approved. There was the option for up to 1% for schools and 1% for the cities within a county.

I was a beginning superintendent at a small rural district in northwest Iowa at the time. The superintendent of Fort Dodge had taken the initiative to bring this to a vote in Webster County, one of the first counties to approve the tax.

We negotiated with the cities in the county where it would be a 1% tax overall with the schools and the cities sharing the revenue equally at a half cent each.

At that time, it was based only on revenues in that county, which meant that schools in Polk County were receiving a much bigger per pupil amount based on revenues than in smaller, rural counties in Iowa.

Johnson and Linn counties were the last two counties to approve the local option sales tax in 1999. When all 99 counties had passed the tax, then the state put all the funds into one pot and shared the same per pupil amount for all schools in the state equally. This happened in 2008. One percent was made available for schools and 1% for the cities in each county.

This local option sales tax for schools was recently extended from the original sunset so that schools are able to bond against these funds for 20 years.

The local option sales tax – now referred to as Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) – can only be used for construction, reconstruction, repair, demolition work, purchasing or remodeling of schoolhouses, stadiums, gyms, field houses and bus garages.

These funds cannot be used to replace typical General Fund expenses such as textbooks, teacher salaries and day-to-day operations. The school receives these funds on a quarterly basis from the state and there has been a consistent increase per pupil annually.

They have become important funds to schools to replace and update infrastructure needs. Recent activity at Highland using the SAVE fund includes upgrading the HVAC at the elementary, construction of the bus barn and renovation of a storage area to an ag classroom. Through the use of SAVE funds, we are saving property taxpayers dollars.

One of my favorite stories related to these funds is a situation that happened in a neighboring school district. The school board approved the reduction of six teachers and their salaries on the same night that they approved $275,000 to pave the parking lots of the schools.

The headlines in the editorial section of the newspaper was “School Values Parking Lot More than Teachers.” Since that time, I have heard similar stories being told. It is a lack of understanding of school finance and how funds can be used.

Teacher salaries are paid out of general funds and cannot be paid out of SAVE funds. It is quite possible that a school district’s general funds are needing to be reduced at the same time that a hefty balance has been built in the SAVE account.

It is not a matter of either/or with regard to teacher salaries. School finance is complicated, and the lack of understanding sometimes gives board members and patrons of school districts heartburn in digesting the realities.