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The Baldwin City school board approved a 2016-2017 budget for publication Monday that will reduce the district’s property tax levy by about a mill.

The proposed budget authorizes spending $11.95 million for basic district operations the coming school year.

Director of financial operations Cynde Frick said the district benefitted from a school funding formula the Legislature passed in a special session in July. In response to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling in June, the Legislature reinstated state equalization payments for the local option budgets of the state’s less well-off school districts.

Frick said the district also benefited from a 3.5 percent increase in its districtwide assessed valuation total.

With the added state funding in the new formula, the district was able to ask less of local taxpayers while still raising the state maximum in local option funding of 33 percent of its general fund. Therefore, the mill levy in support of the local option budget declined from 18.288 in 2015-2016 to 14.408 for 2016-2017.

Some of that mill levy decline was offset by an increase in the district’s debt service mill levy, which increased from 19.429 last year to 22.266 mills for the 2016-2017 school year.

The district’s capital outlay budget is again pegged at its 8 mill maximum, which will raise $644,373.

Should the board approve the budget as published after a public hearing set for 7:15 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Baldwin Elementary School Primary Center, 500 Lawrence St., the total mill levy would be 64.674 mills. That compares to 65.717 mills of a year ago. The board can decrease spending levels before approving the budget but can’t increase expenditures without republishing the budget.

At 64.674 mills, the district’s share of property taxes on a single-family home appraised at $200,000 would be $1,441.

Frick said the board attempted to keep the mill levy steady with the continued school funding uncertainty in Topeka. The Kansas Supreme Court is still to rule on the big question of whether the state is adequately funding K-12 education.