VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Valley City Public School District and Barnes County reached a resolution to rectify the school district’s building fund tax levy issue.

Valley City Public Schools Superintendent Josh Johnson said the school district worked with their legal counsel and Barnes County officials to determine the correct legal process to refund taxpayers for a portion of the building fund mill levy correctly.

School district attorney Rachel Bruner said following meetings with county officials on October 25th and November 2nd, the school district agreed to refund taxpayers for the past four years.

Bruner said under the resolution, the school district will repay Barnes County taxpayers a total of $625,000 dollars over the past four year period. In the agreement, the county will issue refund checks back to taxpayers in the upcoming weeks. The school district agreed to pay $2,000 for the postage of the refund checks.

Barnes County Commission President Bill Carlblom talked about how the refund process will be implemented.

The school board held a special board meeting on Monday, November 6th to receive legal consultation from the school district’s attorney, Rachel Bruner before they unanimously approved of the resolution.

Johnson said it’s been a long, nearly one year process to correct this error. He said it will be nice to get this issue behind us, so we can move forward addressing the school district’s building facility and other school district issues.

Last month, the school board approved a motion to amend the building fund mill levy back to 10 mills under North Dakota Century Code for the 2023-2024 school year moving forward.

The full interview with Bill Carlblom is below.

The full presentation to the school board by their attorney Rachel Bruner is below.