The time has finally come! Over the last several months, the district has been working hard to prepare information and facts in an easily digestible format. I am beyond excited to share that our website dedicated to providing information on the Operating Levy went live on Wednesday! That website, https://www.beaexcellence.org/, is dedicated to providing you with a one stop shop for all your election information pertaining to the district’s ballot question asking for voters to consider $700/pupil to assist with operating expenses.
Last year, the district went to the polls to ask voters to consider a $900/per pupil levy to help the district maintain the current programs. That levy did not pass, and since that time, the district has spent a great deal of time discussing what we could have done differently. Some of the feedback we received from community members was that they did not know the facts behind the need for the levy. Despite our best efforts to hold community meetings in each of our five lovely communities, the message was not heard. We also held informal coffee conversations in each of the communities, but again, the message was not widespread enough to reach the majority of our community members. We recorded an informational session that aired on our local Bevcomm channel, but again, people were still missed. We made presentations to service clubs - such as Kiwanis and Lions - but again, this did not reach everyone who needed to hear the facts.
As such, we spent much of our time creating a communication plan to help reach the masses in order to educate the public on the need for this levy. Enter, BEAExcellence.org. This website was created for you to peruse through to read about the need for the levy, the solution the district has been working on to get the budget in healthier shape (including reducing nearly $1,000,000 in personnel expenses), the impact the levy would have on both our students as well as our property owners, and finally, information and resources on voting (absentee ballots, polling locations, etc.)
Our web traffic data shows that this method is one of the best tools we can use to provide information reaching the most people. As such, we hope you take the time to read through the information on the website. If you find you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me - I’m happy to have the conversations necessary in order for you to feel like you have the information to be an informed voter.
Oh, and one quick tip….the Tax Impact Calculator is likely to give you the most troubles. My best piece of advice is once you find your Parcel ID number (there is a link on our website to find this information), please manually type in the Parcel ID as opposed to copy/paste. Oftentimes the copy/paste option will give you blank spaces and will not recognize the ID. And, don’t forget the periods! The proper format for the Parcel ID number for Faribault and Martin County residents is: 00.000.0000
Regardless of how you choose to vote, we hope you take the time to be fully informed and proceed to exercise your right to vote on November 3, 2020 - or sooner. Visit https://www.beaexcellence.org/ for all your Operating Levy information.
