GRANADA — The Granada-Huntley-East Chain School Board on Thursday set the property tax levy for 2018. It amounts to an 11 percent increase.

In September, the proposed levy was set at $1.6 million, the maximum allowed by state law. This represented a 15.27 percent increase from 2017.

According to the school board, the reason for the increase is due to a significant increase in enrollment, which has gone up about 11.2 percent since the 2016-17 academic year.

During discussion of the levy, board member Robert Garry proposed a $50,000 decrease. With the adjustment, the levy hike would be brought down from 15.27 percent to about 11 percent.

School board members agreed with Garry’s proposal.

“To be responsible to the taxpayers, we’re going to try to make this $50,000 adjustment to kind of ease some of the burden that we couldn’t predict by not knowing how many students we were going to increase by,” said board member Chris Pytleski.

Superintendent Mandy Fletcher said that no one could have predicted the increase in enrollment. While the school board is looking to do what is best for the GHEC students, Fletcher said, it is also important to keep in mind the needs of the community.

After a brief discussion, the board voted to set the 2018 property tax levy at an 11 percent increase.