With election day coming up in Aspen on November 3, 2015, history teachers Chris Wheatley and David Fregly started the Political Action Club to get students to help persuade Aspen homeowners to vote for the mill levy and sales tax increase that will be earmarked for the Aspen School District. If Aspen homeowners vote against this increase, ASD could be facing budget cuts up to $2.2 million next year, which will cause major issues here at AHS.

“Sadly I fear that for the first time we’ll take the form of large class sizes and, god forbid, furloughs,”  Wheatley said. “One of the nice things at the school is that you don’t really have classes of thirty (students) or above and that might become the norm.”

The goal of the club is to advocate for the mill levy override in the 2015 election and for sales tax increase in the 2016 election. The mill levy was last increased in 2010, but in the years since the district has grown so the state allows the school to adjust their rates accordingly.  The mill levy is a tax rate that is applied to the assessed value of a property. The district is asking for $3 per $100,000 each year of valued property or $11.00 a year for each $100,000 of commercial property value. This will bring in about $991,000 each year, which will help maintain teaching positions, small class sizes, and it will protect current programs in our growing school district.

“One of my favorite things about AHS is being able to participate in sports and art,” sophomore Jozie Wille said. “I would hate for these things to be taken away because the school could not pay for them.”

As it gets closer to November, the twenty club members and hopefully more ASD students will be knocking on doors in Aspen and handing out fliers educating potential voters about what the election is for and hopefully persuading them to vote ‘yes’ on the 3A ballot measure to maintain the high quality education at ASD. Because 85% of the school’s annual budget is for teacher and staff salaries and benefits, if the mill levy is not increased, the school will be facing $1 million in staffing cuts at ASD next year.

Although the town of Snowmass does not have measures for school funding on the ballot this year, the school district hopes that Snowmass will increase their mill levy and sales tax in the future. According to the Aspen Times, about 1,700 ASD students come from Snowmass. Although Snowmass is on the fence about this right now because they say their sales tax rate is already very high, they still want to support the local schools in some way.

Because many voters are on the fence, the Political Action Club hopes to persuade people to help the school and prevent large budget cuts next year.