Members of the Lawrence school board shouldn’t expect the approval of additional taxes to support the district budget to be a slam dunk with local voters.

During a tight financial time, families are forced to squeeze their own budgets to make ends meet, and they expect their elected officials to do the same. Instead, they see a school board with a tradition of maxing out its taxing authority every year regardless of the impact the rising levies have on local taxpayers.

On Monday, with just two dissenting voters, the Lawrence school board approved an election on April 1 to decide whether the district can raise its local option budget to the maximum allowed by the state. State law allows LOBs to supplement state funding for local district budgets, but there are limits. The Lawrence district already has an LOB levy that is equal to 30 percent of its general fund budget. That is as high as it can go without seeking voter approval in a general election. In order to raise the LOB to 31 percent of the general fund – an increase of about $680,000 next year – the question must go to the voters.

Spending $45,000 on an election to try to raise $680,000, in itself, raises questions – and there are others.

Several board members expressed confidence Monday that voters would see the need for the additional funds to raise teacher salaries and perhaps fund mental health services in the district. “I believe our public wants to compensate our staff better than they’re doing now, and if they believe this is the only way we can do that, I think they will support this,” said board member Craig Grant.

Grant has it partly right. This community is highly supportive of its schools and its teachers and we understand the competition Lawrence faces from nearby districts. However, wanting to pay the staff more and being able to afford to do so in tough economic times may be two different things.

Local voters also may not be totally convinced that the additional LOB is “the only way” we can better compensate school staff members. Why can’t the district, like the average family, tighten its belt in order to meet its most urgent needs?

Other questions also arise. It cost the district about $1.2 million to raise teacher salaries by 3.28 percent this year. Even if all of the additional LOB money went to teacher salaries, it wouldn’t provide substantial raises.

To district patrons, it also looks like something is out of whack when the district is spending millions of dollars on athletic facilities but says it can’t afford to adequately pay its teachers. We understand that the law doesn’t allow money to be shifted from capital projects to salaries, but all of that money comes from taxpayers. How do we target our tax money toward the district’s top priority: educating students?

As noted above, Lawrence is extremely supportive of its schools, but the recent history of the Lawrence school board taking every opportunity to levy the maximum property tax allowed by law is starting to wear on local taxpayers. Maybe voters will approve the additional LOB authority, but school board members shouldn’t assume too much.