001Hi, my name is Matt Clark. I serve as the director of business and finance for the Sun Prairie Area School District. And tonight, I'll be walking you through the proposed budget for the 2526 fiscal year. This is the budget that pending board approval will be presented at the annual meeting in October. So, the path to the proposed budget, how did we get here? Um this proposed budget is the result of months of internal planning and multiple presentations over the past several months. Um within the situation report that's attached in diligent um I listed and linked all of the presentations that have been given by u many different people over the past several months um to get to this point. So a lot of hard work um and communication to the board and the community as
002we learn more throughout the budgeting process. Um, finally on July 3rd, the Wisconsin state budget was finalized. Um, and that G gave us some key funding information that we needed to be able to move forward in the budgeting process. Um, then on July 28th, we held a public hearing in regards to the budget, which provided an opportunity for the community to review um, and give any feedback that they felt necessary. A lot of really good conversation came from that meeting. The next step um should the board approve the proposed budget tonight will be to bring this budget to the annual meeting for final consideration. So, some key points. Um, the official DPI, um, formatted documents that comply with Wisconsin statute 6590 are attached in diligent for your review and ultimately approval. Um, these documents include
003the audited financials for the 2324 fiscal year, the unudited financials for the 2425 fiscal year, as well as the proposed 2526 budget that is before you tonight. This budget is broken down or these documents are broken down by fund and then by function which provide the board and the community with some insight into where the district's spending has been allocated over the past handful of fiscal years. So since the July budget hearing, one notable update has occurred to the budget. Um the state has confirmed an increase of about $700,000 in personal property aid. While this aid was provided unexpectedly to all districts across the state last year, its continuation was uncertain even after the bianial budget was finalized. So following the budget hearing in July, we received full confirmation that it indeed will be funded
004again. Um, it is important to note that this is not new money for additional spending. Rather, it is an increase in state aid which directly reduces the tax levy. In this case, the additional personal property aid reduces our levy by just over $700,000, which is a positive outcome for not only the district, but our taxpayers. And then finally, I want to emphasize that all state budget impacts are reflected in this proposed budget and the budget being presented tonight is balanced. So, the key drivers of this budget um have all been talked through in detail um during the July budget hearing. I won't go through each and every one of them, but I do want to touch on um two again. One being the $1.4 4 million increase in equalization aid, which sounds great, but it's
005still um $2.6 million below our initial projection due to the state adding no new money to the equalization aid funding pool, which is unprecedented. The other piece that I want to note again, um, on the special education side, the fund 27 reimbursement revenue is expected to grow by $2.3 million due to the reimbursement rate for eligible special ed expenses, increasing from 30% to 39%. Which in turn reduces the fund 10 transfer needed to cover fund 27 costs. So this slide was um presented at the public hearing in July. The only updates that I want to note are a decrease in the total levy from 93.7 million to 93.1 million as well as a reduction in the mill rate from 1036 that was presented in July to 1029. Both of these reductions are due to the
006confirmed personal property aid funding that I had mentioned earlier. Everything else on this slide remain the same from July. Going into the mill rate a little further, again, this is a slide that was presented in July as well. Um, you can see that our mill rate is increasing from 1016 to the new projected 1029 next year. And again, for context, during the 2024 referendum process, the mill rate was estimated to be $10.74 for the 2526 fiscal year. This is what was communicated to our community. Um, which means that our current projection is about 45 lower than what was originally shared in the referendum materials, which is positive news. So finalizing the tax levy and mill rate, there are still three critical pieces of information needed before we can finalize the budget. All the numbers presented
007tonight are still projected. The first is our official student count which occurs on the third Friday in September. The second is the equalization aid certification and the third is our equalized property valuation both of which come out in October. These three variables ultimately determine the final levy in mill rate. So in terms of next steps tonight the school board will take action on the proposed budget and if approved on October 6th that budget um will be taken to the annual meeting where the tax levy will be officially set. Then by October 31st, the school board will adopt the original budget based on the final aid certification, property valuation, and enrollment count. Thank you so much for your time and have a good day. [Music]