001I'll mute it and let me know when you want to speak. >> She hasn't noticed yet, so you don't have to worry about that. >> Okay, it is 6:15. I will call this meeting to order as we have a quorum of the board present. If everyone will please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Roll call, please. >> Dr. Bardau, >> present. Bobby Braun, Jill M Nelson >> here, >> Kristen Matt Miller >> here. >> Scott Peterson >> here. >> Uh, Katherine Solen >> here. >> Abby Maddock >> here. >> JD Schrader. >> Danny Patt. >> I'm here. J D is on remote. >>
002Is on remote. >> Yes, he is on uh Glenda's >> computer. >> Correct. >> Okay. Letter D, public comments. Uh we do have someone signed up for public comments. So the presiding officer uh shall be guided by the following rules. Public comment shall be permitted before the board takes official action on any issue of substance. Attendees must register their intention to comment in the public portion of the meeting upon their arrival at the meeting. Comments made by public shall be civil in content and tone, affirming the decorum established for a schoolboard meeting by the school board. Disparing comments or remarks about schoolboard members, employees, students, positions, or position titles, and our district citizens shall not be made permitted. Uh, comments by the public shall be in reference to a specific agenda item. Participants must be
003recognized by the presiding officer and will be requested to preface their comments by an announcement of their name and group affiliation if and when appropriate. Each statement made by a participant shall be limited to 5 minutes duration, which that time will be on the screen. No participant may speak more than once on the same topic unless all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. Participants shall direct all comments to the board and not to staff or other participants. Participants shall address only topics within the legitimate jurisdiction of the board. All statements shall be diverted uh directed, I'm sorry, to the presiding officer. No person may address or question board members individually. The presiding officer may interrupt, warrant, or terminate a participant statement when the statement is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive,
004obscene, or irrelevant. Request an individual to leave the meeting when that person does not observe reasonable decorum. Request the assistance of law enforcement officers in the removal of a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting. Call for recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum so interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting as to warrant such action. The portion of the meeting during which the comment of public is invited shall be limited to 60 minutes unless extended by a vote of the board. And having said the policy 0167.3 public comment at board meetings, we have one member who has signed up to speak and that is Mr. George Shenners. Mr. shatters just one. Thank you for the opportunity to speak and I'd
005like to read just one paragraph that's very pertinent to the budget proposal. This was from the director of business services. Believe it's a direct quote. The budget hearing is an opportunity for the school district to present its proposed budget to the public and stakeholders. It allows for transparency and public input into the budgetary process. And I thank you for this opportunity if that's really what we're trying to do. Very complicated obviously a budget for a school district. looking through [snorts] whatever information I could find, I tried to pair it down to one item, and that's maintenance and taking care of our facility. because I've been approached to find very significant funds to maintain some of our buildings in this facility. I also heard in the last couple meetings that we have a fund 46 which
006is a maintenance fund. And I guess my question for the board is what is the intention of using funds from fund 46 and how does it fit into the 10-year plan that I understand you must have to receive tax benefits from the state if you're going to participate in fund 46. Will that fund help take care of some of this $125,000 of repair work that I've been asked to get involved in? Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Shanners, for that question and and I know that the fund 46 does take care of capital improvements, but those capital improvements that it takes care of, and Kelly, you can correct me if I'm wrong, please do. Uh those projects have to be listed on our 10-year improvement capital campaign guide, which I believe most of those such
007as blacktop around the high school, concrete around the high school, those small not small projects, but those things are listed on that uh 10-year capital improvement fund. >> I'll add one sentence. I would like to see the 10-year plan as to what is intended to be used. >> is on that plan. I'd like to see it in writing. Thank you. >> We can certainly make that available uh to you. >> Thank you. Kelly Jake is Jake's not here. So, can we >> Mrs. Ojinski make sure that Mr. Shers gets a copy of that 10-year plan. >> Thank you so much. >> Okay. Letter E is the annual budget hearing. At this time, I will turn it over to our business manager, uh, Mrs. Vospender. >> Thank you. All right. So, welcome to our 2025 2026
008budget hearing. I will wait for you to get the presentation up so everybody can see. So, one of the things that I like to start off with is obviously we are talking at to around the budget at a very high level. So, one of the things that we've talked about since this administration has come to the district is that our goals is to align all of our funds with the specific guidelines that they have to have our highest academic return of investment. So, you'll see some of those things. I'm not going to get into those details because those are obviously details you hear throughout our committees and things like that. But again, at a high level, that's professional development for our teachers, updated curriculum and resources to align to our state standards, targeted intervention, those
009types of things around our people and our resources to ensure that in the end, our main goal is our students and academic achievement. Facilities fall into those things as well. Um, but we will get into the details around the different funds and how those are used to achieve those goals. So, first off, just high level budget timeline in a school district. The school district budget calendar really outlines the key dates and steps for developing, approving, and monitoring a district's annual budget. This process often begins in the spring with initial planning. But one key difference from other budget timelines is that the district receives major portions of their funding such as state aid and property tax revenue after the fiscal year has already begun, which I know that you're very familiar with. That's why your preliminary
010budget comes out in June, but you don't actually get your allocations until October 15th, which is only a short bit to go. So, this means that school districts must use their revenue projections to anticipate your funding levels, ensuring that our expenditures are planned accurately without knowing what your final revenue figures are until later in the year, October 15th to be specific. And then, additionally, budget timelines must also incorporate all the state statutes around staffing decisions and as a district must plan for potential budget cuts and staffing adjustments well in advance, often by spring. So, those are some of the pieces that we use with third Friday count along with um your January student count to anticipate what staffing decisions you're going to need to make for this fiscal school year based on last year's budgets.
011Um so, this timeline also needs to align with our district strategic initiatives which I talked a little bit about um in the opening and then to ensure that our budget supports our long-term goals and educational priorities while balance balancing our fiscal constraints. Again, high level, June, that's when your preliminary approval of the budget comes. Those are really just estimates. And October and September is when you get your third Friday count for enrollments, which is what your funding formula is primarily based around. You get your open enrollment count, which also may affect your revenue and expenses. October one is your equalized valuation. And then your October 15th is your certification of aids where you get your actual numbers. And then here we are today with our budget hearing and setting of the final tax levy which
012um must be certified and set the schoolboard clerk must set the levy and adopt the original budget on or before November 1st. Highle budget overview. Where do your revenues come from? So property tax is one area and that includes your district fund 10, the aquatic center which is fund 80, the referendum which is fund 39 and then the private school vouchers are all wrapped up into that as well which we'll talk about shortly. Your equalization aid, that's the aid that's provided by the state. So, um, that's outlined there that we've had a significant increase over since the 23 24 school year. Your revenue limit, which is what you are allotted per member, and that had a slight increase of $325 per member. Then your per pupil categorical aid, which had a decrease of about $45,000.
013and then your transportation aid estimate um which is a slight increase and just a point of reference that we provide transportation to the public schools by state statute. So that is included in the expense for the district. One of the things that is pretty significant in our district is the private school voucher tax impact. So you'll see that starting the data that I put on this slide is starting from 2324. We will get some more longitudinal numbers shortly. Um but I just wanted to talk through a little bit how private school vouchers impact the mill rate and impact the actual levy in our school district. So in 2023 24 the private school taxpayer impact on property taxes was almost $1.2 2 million and the mill rate for the school district if the private school voucher
0141.2 million was not in there would have been $543 which is 78 more um bringing our mill rate to $621. You'll see that in 2425 the voucher taxpayer impact increased to about 1.6 6 million and that is 95 cents higher than what the mill rate would be without those vouchers included. They would have came in at $621. Instead came in at $7.16 which did include the referendum la on last year's tax bills which was a little bit of a point of confusion for some because it is so quickly where [snorts] it was approved and then tax bills come out. 2526 is the tax year we're in right now. And those vouchers have significantly increased to about 1.9 million. If we were to have a mill rate without those private school vouchers, it would be $5.73
015including the referendum and which is an additional$14 uh more. So the mill rate that's anticipated is $6.77. One of the things that I'd like to remind, I've had this in my slides for the last three years, is really a significant piece especially for our school district is all the different pieces of revenue that flow into our operations. And I know that it's um [snorts] been a pretty significant point of conversation around the community to understand why we've had such a significant amount of cuts, especially in the area of personnel. And one of the things that our administration did when we got here was really significant all around the state is to look at how much of that federal aid for COVID um called ESSER funds did this school district get and then how much of
016that operational budget is dependent upon that money. So, we had since 202021 all the way to the 2023 school year 2024, um we had about $8 million that was in our operational budget. So to avoid an operational referendum which would increase taxpayers impact very significantly, we had to really look at what is going to impact our student achievement for that highest rate of return on investment and how do we operate with our children's success and our facilities in mind as well because we know that impacts our students. So we had to do some significant alignment to ensure that we were well within our budgetary means but while keeping our strategies focused on kids and so we were able to successfully do that. Um but I just like to remind people that if we would have
017continued to operate how it was operating with that money we would have had to go to operational referendum for the community. So the first fund that we'll talk about is fund 10 and that's our general fund. This is your operating fund for the district. It's used to account for all the financial resources for the district except those that are required to be accounted for in other funds. I'll talk a little bit about this um in the future of this presentation, but this does not include the referendum money. So referendum money is only around the question which I have included in this slide deck as well and it is not for operational costs whatsoever, personnel, any of those things um like fund 10 is. This is a detailed line item around all of the revenues for
018our general fund. They range from local sources, other school districts, um, other school districts outside of Wisconsin, intermediate sources, state sources, federal sources, and then just other financial sources. And that total revenue is 30,188,914. The next slide will show the details around the anticipated expenditures um that are around instruction support sources non-program transactions and those funds as we have planned are balancing at this point which is $30,188,914 expenditures as well. The next fund is special education fund and that's fund 27. This is used to account for all of the excess cost that's of providing special education and related services for students with disabilities during the regular school year or extended school year. Those revenues include federal IDA, preschool grant, state categorical aid, Medicaid reimbursements for studentbased services and support for from the general fund. The
019fund 10 to fund 27 transfer amount is determined by subtracting the fund expenses from state and federal special education revenues. And just as a reminder then there is no fund balance or deficit that can happen in this fund. So on this slide we are going to look at the revenues and those are again from local sources other school districts within Wisconsin other school districts outside of Wisconsin state sources federal sources and then other revenues and that is coming in at 4,274,86. Next slide outlines our expenditures for fund 27 which again is divided by instruction support services and then non-program transaction which is balanced. Fund 21 is our special revenue fund. This is donations and fundraising. This fund is used to account for the proceeds of donations and fundraising. Expenditures are limited to specific purposes related
020to district operations. Um, beginning in 2021, the Governmental Accounting Standard B standards Board released statement number 84 requiring that the fidiciary nature of student activity accounts be recorded on a district's financial statements. There is um a fund balance that's allowed to be in that fund. Fund 38 and 39 are in regards to referendum. So fund 38 is your non-referendum debt service fund. We do not have anything in that. Our fund 39, this is designated for the repayment of debt related to projects that were approved through referendum. We obviously had a referendum approved last November. So that is what this debt is referring to. It has to be recorded in fund 39. This fund is funded by property taxes and is used to service bonds or loans obtained for specific capital improvement. So remember, our referendum
021vote really allows the district to be able to take out loans or bonds to be able to fund the project that's specifically outlined within the ballot question. The establishment of this fund allows for the district to clearly account for and manage the debt incurred from referendum approved initiatives again so that it doesn't get mixed in with the other operations of the district. It's very strict and we have an we have a company that we work with, PMA, who helps to manage all of those funds to ensure accuracy. Both funds help school district effectively manage their debt obligations, distinguishing between those that require voter approval and those that do not. [snorts] So just a reminder, this is one of the pieces of the referendum that was improve approved and that is the new elementary school. There
022is also going to be related site improvements, possible land acquisition, improvements for reallocation, all of those pieces for capital maintenance as well that you can see detailed in that ballot question. fund 41, 46, 48, and 49. So, we do not have anything in our fund, capital expansion fund. Fund 46, that is our long-term capital improvement trust fund. This is a trust fund where school districts can set aside money for future app um capital improvements. After the five-year period, which we are well into, funds deposited into deposited into fund 46 are not subject to revenue limits and provide a way for the district to save for major projects without impacting their operational budgets. Just a little reminder. I know we've talked a lot about it, but if you don't live in school finance, sometimes you need
023a little bit of a reminder that if you don't use fund 46 and you use fund balance, you cannot save for a long-term capital improvement project and increase equalized aid, which is state from the state aid from the state. So, if you don't use this fund to save, it will negatively impact your taxes. So that's one of the reasons why this fund is so important especially with our goal of being fiscally responsible for taxpayers. Fund 48 that is our energy efficiency pro projects fund. We do not have anything in there. And then fund 49 this is around those project capital and projects funds that have to do with the referendum. So, it's used for specific capital projects funded through borrowing borrowings such as bonds or other sources which we obviously took out due to the
024referendum and it's often associated with referendum approved construction or significant capital improvement projects. Those details are outlined here where the revenues are 20,322,477 and then the estimated expenditures is 26,81373 with fund 46 and fund 49. Fund 50 is for food service fund and these are used to account for and report transactions of the district's food and community service activities. No K12 instructional or instructional support related functions are recorded in these funds. All revenues and expenditures related to pupil food service activities are recorded in this fund. a fund balance in the f food service fund is permitted and there may be no deficit in the district's food service fund. Um so similar to fund 40 or 27 if you do have a def deficit in your food service fund you have to fund it through fund
02510. Any food service fund deficit resulting from student food services must be eliminated through by an operating transfer from the general fund. Just like I explained, next fund is fund 73. This is your employment employee benefit trust for other postemployment benefits. This was created in 2006 2007 and was a result of the government accounting governmental accounting standards board statement 45 that requires school districts to provide a more complete and reliable financial reporting regarding postemployment benefits for their employees. This statement addresses the costs and future obligations incurred when post-employment benefits such as health insurance are rep provided for retirees. The district was required to determine the OPED liability for a financial reporting through an actuarial valuation. Um contributions can be made to the trust to pay for future post-employment benefits. The contribution is eligible for both
026equalization aids and categorical aids which is aid from the state similar to fund 46. The district made its last payment to o to the OPED portion of the trust and there are sufficient funds within the trust to cover all future postemployment health benefits. The funds within OPED portion are managed by PMA which is the same as our referendum funds and invested with Wisconsin investment series cooperative. Here is an outlined balance of those. So you can see PMA Mid America and then the total the total is 2,441,756.92. Fund 80 is your community service fund. So the this fund is used to account for activities such as adult education, community recreation programs such as evening swimming pool operation and softball leagues. Districts use it for a wide variety of different programs such as elderly food service programs,
027non-special education, preschool, daycare services, and other programs which are not elementary and secondary educational programs, but do have a primary focus on serving the community. Our community service fund fund 80 is solely for the community aquatic center and the expenditures for the aquatic center are offset by revenues generated through the user and membership fees, rentals, class offerings and donations. I'd also add in their grants. Um so you will see the last two years. Um we have worked with the YMCA to bring an extensive amount of programs to really look at developing fiscal responsibility and looking at how much revenues we're bringing in versus expenditures and really looking at how do we offer a more wide variety of programs for our community including swim lessons etc. So you will see that the revenues um estimated is
028$600,05 that includes estimated donations or grant funds. So not necessarily guaranteed just like the expenditures that are estimated those expenditures are estimated um in line with if the donations or grants would be obtained then certain expenditures would happen. Um, like Mr. Shers was talking about the capital projects that he was noting, those pieces are included in those estimated expenditures pending donations or grants that would fund raise. That fund 91, 93, and 99 are designated for programs that our district may host or offer to other districts. Both revenues and expenses for these programs are managed through this fund. We do not have anything in these funds. Here's where you can see the different fund balance allocations. We have dental. We have the unspent common school funds, H committed cash flow and emergency funds which are all
029in part of the unassigned fund balance. and then different grant carryover in the assigned fund balance totaling 8,188,382. We will talk about why fund balance is significant when we talk in a few slides about cash flow. So here is a visual around how school funding revenues comes in. You can see that the orange shows the expenditures which are pretty even throughout the year with a little bit of a spike in June and July. And then you can see the erratic revenue streams that we get because of when state aids and property taxes come into the district. So, it's very key to be able to have a healthy fund balance to avoid having to do short-term borrowing in which you'd be spending a lot of money on interest to do that short-term borrowing. And um having
030a fund balance like we do has gotten us a very good rate on our bonds, which we are using for the referendum, as well as gathering interest that can be spent within our district. So there's all very positive pieces to having a healthy fund balance. Mill rate. So equalized valuation is a piece that folds into the mill rate. This refers to that total taxable value of all property within the school district as determined by the state ensuring uniform property assessments across different municipalities. And remember we have 19 of those. This is important because property values can vary significantly between local assessors. So the state equalizes these values to create fair and consistent comparisons across districts. The mill rate is the amount of tax per thousand of property value that the school district needs to collect
031to meet its budgetary needs. It is calculated by dividing the total amount of money the district needs to raise through property taxes which is the tax levy by the district's equalized valuation and then multiplying t times a thousand. So over the last two years equaliz equalized valuation started at about 1.5 billion and has increased to about 1.8. [clears throat] Mill rates are still at historic ro uh lows. So, it's really exciting to see how even with a referendum being passed and significant taxpayer impact with private school vouchers, our mill rate is still the fourth lowest on record. So, you can take a look back and see how the mill rate was pretty drastic um all the way up to $18 and right now it is proposed to be 6.77 which is less than last year.
032And if there wasn't an increase in the private school vouchers, it would be at $5.73. So, some questions might arise around taxpayer funded private school vouchers. We're not the only ones that see an increase in this. It's around the state. Um, but in 201516 and 1617, the total numbers number of pupils residing in the district who could participate in the private school choice program from each district was very limited. It was limited to no more than 1% of the district's prior year membership. So beginning in 1718 school year the enrollment limit was will increased by 1% one percentage point in each year until the enrollment limit reached 10% of the district's prior year enrollment. Um beginning in 2627 there will be no enrollment limit that will apply. So that will impact that may impact taxes
033in the future. One of the things to note also is that per pupil funding has also increased longitudinally. So, not only did the caps increase of how many uh funds the private schools could claim, but also how much funding they could get per student. You can see here a longitudinal look at where our district's mill rate is. Our district mill rate is the blue and then the voucher is in the red. And then obviously if you combine those two that is the total mill rate that you would have on the tax levy. The mill rate is the amount of tax per thousand of property value that a district click um collects. So you will see that articulated out throughout. This just is a look at how they are combined and then just gives you a
034number. You can see that we've had a decrease over the last year including the capital referendum. So, just as we talked a great deal about throughout the referendum discussions that we had throughout the community, once you spend more money, you get more money back. So, because we passed the referendum, we were able to capitalize on more state aid that then in turn lowered the mill rate. If we would not have passed the referendum, you would not have had the money or the income to be able to spend. Therefore, you would not get that increased uh state aid which lowers your tax amount that taxpayers pay. Here is that state equalization aid. So, like I talk about, you see what the impact is in the year after you spend it. So you can see that since
03523 24 school year, we've increased over $2 million of state aid that's coming into our district, which ultimately it doesn't give our district more money. It just lowers the amount that the taxpayers pay. So that's one of the pieces to note. Again, this equalization aid is the amount of money that's provided by the state to support K12 public education. It's unique to every single school district. So based on the very complex school funding formula, your district has a unique amount of aid versus a unique amount that taxpayers pay. We are in a very exciting position that we get a significant amount more for aid from the state than we do for property tax impact. I included this piece in there to remind people that when you review your tax bill, you'll see a line item
036um for the levy associated with the capital referendum. This levy that is associated with the capital referendum will increase over time as the district focuses on retiring the debt much like an amateurization schedule. However, like I talked about how the year before is the year that you spend the money, you see the state aid come in the next year. So, when a school district receives an increase in state aid due to the referendum, the state requires that additional funding to be deposited into general fund. This reduces the general fund levy, which offsets the increase needed to retire the referendum debt. Don't let that confuse you to say that we're spending referendum money on fund 10 expense expenses. But we are not. It is only allocated to what is in that ballot question. Just a reminder
037of our B budget priorities. Ultimately, it is to maximize our state aid to lower our taxpayer impact and then align all of our funds to maximize student achievement, which in our first year we increased through 1421 district or 421 districts, we increased by 89 spots. And once our test results become public, November 11th supposedly, we will be able to see more exciting news around how um we're maximizing our student achievement. >> Can you just repeat that the 89 >> the the jump in our I think it's good to tie in the academic achievement and focus on academic achievement when it comes to the the school finance component and aligning >> um that. So, if you could just repeat that because I think it's really important for all to hear. >> Right. So, one of the
038things is even though we're operating with less than that less $8 million that was given to the to the school district through federal funds, we were still able to cut the budget using student achievement strategies as our primary primary focus. And we were able to see that those strategies that we employed through aligning our funds did increase our student achievement. So much so that we were able to increase our stu our state ranking increase by 89 spots out of 421. So that's a really significant jump. Um there is a district mailer going out that's going to talk more detail around that piece. So everybody will be able to have that in their mailbox and be able to see that. And then once our new data comes out, we'll be able to see further impact of
039how the strategies that we're employing are working even with less money. So it's pretty exciting. >> Our focus is student achievement and ensuring that the decisions that are made from the finance department are focused on [clears throat] investing in our students and their academic achievement. >> So I just really want to point that out. Thank you. So to summarize our pro proposed tax levy, the fund 10 general fund which that $8,489 $255 includes that1,862,54 private school vouchers. Fund 39, which is your debt debt service, that is the referendum payment. So that is 3,341756. Fund 80 is 300,000 for pool operations. And just to reiterate that the mill rate decreased from last year's $716 to $6.77. The mill rate, including the referendum, would only be $5.73 without private school vouchers. Due to the drastic increase in
040vouchers since 2017, our mill rate has increased by a dollar4 from 575 to a combined total of 677. And that summarizes our budget hearing. So if there's any questions, please feel free to ask. >> Are there any questions from the board members to Mrs. Fospender for this budget hearing presentation? >> Like that fund 80 say we don't have what what if we spend more than where does the money come if we spend more than we have in there >> directly from taxpayers. So that's direct impact >> income 46 fund 46 >> it's added directly from so if you were to take that 300,000 away then that would lower the mill rate and lower the amount of tax levy. So it comes directly just as all the rest come from on the revenue limit worksheet. There's
041discussion of um a potential expansion at All Saints and I heard a lot throughout this about the private school vulture program cost. Should any private school expand, that cost that you talked about would increase? >> Yes. >> Along with that, correct? >> Yep. And then that would go directly on the tax lobby. >> Are there any other questions from board members to Mrs. Fospender for the budget hearing presentation? Okay, hearing no questions. Thank you, Mrs. Fospender, for that wonderful presentation and all the documents and the information you gave to us. I would uh strongly suggest that our newspaper is present, but she sits with you and has a an interview with you to get all of these all this information in there prior to going to publication. Uh so that way everything is all saying
042the same thing. So maybe if you can work that out with her or you may have already done that. I don't know. >> Yes, I did give her this. But in looking at this, for some reason on that very last slide, it says $5.75. It should say $5.73. Just to note, I was looking at it and thinking it in my head as I saw it. I'm like, just want to say it. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification of the typo on the very last slide uh that was presented to you. Okay. Having said that, I will look for a motion to adjourn this budget hearing. >> So moved. >> Motion has been made by Jill. All in favor of uh adjournment for this budget hearing, let it be known by saying I. >> I.
043Oppose. Same sign. No opposition. The budget hearing meeting is now adjourned.