The Advisory Board of Valencia Campus plans to put the question of the extension of an existing mill levy on a February 2015 ballot, along with local school board elections, said Alice Letteney, executive director of UNM Valencia campus.
Mill levies are property taxes used to pay for general obligation bonds approved by voters and are Valencia campus’ most important source of capital income, she said.
“In effect, this is a renewal of the campus’ existing mill levy,” Letteney said.
In documents presented to the Board of Regents, she said most of the current general obligation bonds have been paid off and the debt service on the new bonds will be wrapped around the current bonds so that the existing mill rate of 0.85 will not be increased.
Approval from the Board of Regents is mandatory before calling for an election on tax levies to be imposed in order to repay the local general obligation bonds, according to an operating agreement between Board of Regents and the Valencia Campus Advisory Board.
The Board of Regents approved the proposal during their September meeting, and the measure will go to the advisory board.
“We are going to have local school board elections in February and some of our elected advisory board for campus will also be up for election, and we want this question to appear on our local ballot in that February election,” Letteney said.
Letteney said the branches were allowed to raise funds from their local service regions and the money collected through the capital mill levy will go to the campus’ infrastructure needs. Those needs include heating and cooling, electrical and mechanical renovations as well as new classrooms.
According to UNM’s website, more than 2,400 students attend classes at the campus.
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
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