001I'd like to call this uh budget hearing of the DC Everest area school for to order. Uh, first up is pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the pledge 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. Uh, next up is the purpose of the budget hearing. Katie, >> notice is hereby given to the qualified electors for the DC Everest area school district comprised of the villages of Hatley, Rothschild, and Weston, the city of Scoffield in towns of Easton, Ringle, and Weston, Marathon County, and such parts of the city of Wasau, village of Croninawater, and the towns of Nori, Reed, and Wasa. Marathon County as are in said district that the budget hearing for the 2025 20226 school
002year will be held in the DC Everest administration building at 6100 Alderson Street in Weston 54476 on the 22nd day of October 2025 at 6 p.m. Detailed copies of the budget are available at the district business office at 6100 Alderson Street West in Wisconsin 54476 and on our website address as listed in the in the paperwork immediately following the budget hearing. The annual meeting will be held in the same location. Schoolboard members will attend this meeting as private citizens. No official schoolboard action will be taken dated this 10th day of October, 2025. >> Thank you. And with that, I would like to welcome everyone to this budget hearing of the DC Ever School District. The district is fortunate to have strong community support from people like you that take an active interest in your school
003community. Thank you for taking time to attend tonight's meeting. It is important to note that we welcome differences in opinion and recognize we are all here because we have a vested interest in our children and in our schools. During the hearing portion of the meeting, there are no motions acted upon. There is a time set for question and comments. Participants will be recognized by the presiding officer and are asked to clearly state their name and address before beginning their remarks. And with that, we will move um into the review of the proposed 2526 budget. As Dr. Strike makes her way up there, um want to for sure give our entire team uh credit for the work behind the scenes. I hear Kelly and our finance team talk that, you know, the budget isn't something that
004lives just uh with our finance team, but something that every year we revisit priorities and reallocate and make sure that we're aligned with the needs of our our kids in our community. So, uh, however, they do the lion share of collecting and making sure that it does align and, uh, Kelly's going to walk you through that tonight. So, I appreciate all her work behind the scenes and as well as her team. >> Thank you and welcome everyone to the 2526 budget presentation. Did it fall asleep? There we go. Got it. Thank there we go. Tonight I'm going to review the K12 education impacts of the state budget. Uh review revenue new limits and equalization aid is that it's the primary source of revenue. Um look at the revenue limit spreadsheet where that's where all the
005magic happens. Um and review our tax levy. um and budget as well as capital projects planned for the year. So in 2527 state budget, it is we are in the first year of a state budget. The revenue limit adjustment was $325 per pupil um for both fiscal years and the low revenue ceiling remained at $11,000. There were no changes um to current law in equalization aid or how much was distributed into aid. And as I get through the budget later, you'll kind of see the impacts of that and I'll explain how we adjusted as a result. Um, a big change was an increase to our special education categorical aid. Um, it is some certain amount of 42%. Um, there is a bucket and often they can't reach that so it likely will be a little
006bit less. For example, this past year it was supposed to be 33%, it ended in the year with 30.64, 64, but we are making a big adjustment that's going to result in almost a $900,000 increase in special education aid. There were some adjustments to high-cost special education aid, but that's a smaller amount for many districts, including ours. And school-based mental health services continued, but you will see a big drop off after this year um into next year in terms of that allocation and the amount given to districts including ourselves. So, just a little bit of a reminder on revenue limits. they were implemented in the 9394 school year. The revenue limit is the total maximum amount of revenue that can be raised through state aid um and property tax. So you'll see the calculation you
007can say revenue limit minus general aid ends up being your tax um levy or your property tax levy. When you add tax, levy, and aid, that's your total revenue limit. That is set where a district cannot exceed that without a referendum. It is calculated based on your three-year rolling membership average, which we'll dig into. It is the primary source of revenue for most school districts, including ours. It was designed with the intent to be adjusted annually for inflationary purposes, although it hasn't been um in many years. And as I said, only exceeded through referendum. So, it's just another way to look at that um that math equation. We're math people. We like math. So aid plus tax levy that is your total revenue limit. Um the fund fundamental purpose behind equalization aid is to level
008the playing field um by providing assistance distributing aid to poorer districts and that's measured by property value. So in fact there are some districts that receive no aid or very little aid. Um but again the combination of tax levy and general aid is still set by that revenue limit which is set which is set for each district. So this is the revenue limit spreadsheet. And if you looked at the annual meeting booklet or any of those materials, I know it's really small, but I just like to highlight this is where I said this is where the magic happens. This is where all the calculations are run. So if you look at key arrows on the left side, the first arrow I'm pointing to the membership three-year rolling average. We'll look at that a little bit
009more closely. That bottom amount, although it's a big dollar amount, that's that property value. So that's going to help calculate how much aid a district receives. um in the top arrow, if we're moving to the right side, go to the top. When I mentioned that 11,325, that's what's set in the budget each year. That helps determine the calculations. The next smaller arrow I'm just pointing out is the declining enrollment exemption. This is a large number and something that DC Everest is experiencing is declining enrollment. The important idea behind that more than the amount is that recognize as districts have big shifts and it could be a growth or a decline in enrollment. There is an adjustment within that exemption. So you don't feel that drop off so drastically. At the same time, if you're growing,
010you may not see that increase as drastically as well. the fact that we're so um that we have um a more significant declining enrollment than we've seen, just realize that's revenue that that we're getting this year that didn't drop off as a result of that drop. But we need to to look and forecast ahead and plan for that. Um that sec that third I should say small arrow is that total and we'll look at that number a little more closely. That's that total revenue limit I talked about. And then ultimately on the bottom it breaks down the tax levy and the mill rate which we'll look at a little bit more closely as well. So first I mentioned membership. So membership measures the portion of full-time enrollment of think of DC Everest students. Um this
011is if you hear about the third Friday count these are third Friday counts. It's not adjusted later in the year from a revenue limit membership perspective. It does whatever it is in September. That's where it stays. You can look over the course of the last three years. Uh something else I'd like to point out as we look at that third Friday count. This is also how summer FTE counts summer um summer school FTE is calculated into this. It's not its own revenue stream or a separate pot. It's just part of that revenue limit. Um so you can see that we continue decline with our three-year average is now at 5,682. Um, and because we're significantly in declining enrollment, and going back to that number I showed before, even a shift of there's a a pretty
012broad range, if we had counted 50 more students, we wouldn't have seen one more dollar. Um, because you kind of have to pay back, they often talk about pay back that declining enrollment exemption, it would just lower that amount before we got additional revenue. So, this decline that we're in or that declining enrollment exemption is something that we need to to continue to look at and plan for. Um in another way this is headcount and I like to talk about headcount that sometimes this represents the students in seats the number of students that we are educating um and that doesn't always match membership primarily because of open enrollment. There can be some other factors. So I think these are two important graphs to take a look at in terms of you can see the trends
013with open enrollment. The top green bar is um the amount of uh students coming into DC Everest from other districts. And you can see that's been fairly level um the last three years, but is a little bit of a decline. But you can also see on the bottom the red um the red line that's open enrollment out. And so you can see that has definitely been ticking up the last three years. So although more students are coming in that out those are important things to consider um as it relates to the number of students we educate and our revenue position. So if you look um you can see that we were very steady for many years headcount again and I'm looking at the chart on the left that is the number of students we are
014educating. We have dropped over 28 students in the last two years. So that's a significant decline in the number of students we're educating. some year-over-year changes. So, a lot of these numbers I highlighted in arrows on the revenue limit spreadsheet, but I just want to take a look at the three-year trends. The top is that three-year membership average I talked about. Um, and so you can see at 5,682 down significantly from the last two years. The total revenue limit, and this is the important one in terms of um this is most of our revenue as a district comes from this. you can see those increases and those are typically done like I mentioned the 325 per pupil amount low revenue ceiling plays a factor as well so you can see the increase in total revenue
015limit you'll notice when we look at the fund 10 levy you can see a big jump up that's primarily because when we talk about that equation you can also see with aid that our number is almost the same as last year slightly higher that is largely due to the fact that um in the state budget they put no additional dollars into aid. So although the revenue limit increased by $325 that um the aid stayed somewhat similar that shifted to the taxpayer. However, I will later show you that through debt defeasence, we're able to keep the levy steady in terms of dollar amounts for our taxpayers. But I do want to show that shift in terms of that budget impact and what that has on aid and tax levy. Property values have gone up again and
016you will see from last year went up quite a bit. um especially if you look at the change from 232 24 to 2425 a little bit more that will ultimately impact um the mill rate and distribution. You can see the mill rate went down. So this is we have this chart in the um the um annual meeting booklet if you look in detail as well. So I mentioned that fund 10 levy and that went up. But I think the most important thing to see on this is if you look at that total levy amount that total so the sub on the on the bottom you can see is the exact same from last school year. So 25,935,544. So we kept fund 80 levy just because that's an easy one. I'll point that one out first.
017That stayed the same at $450,000. our debt service. Our fund 38 is the notreferendum debt which is energy efficient. That is a set number that's scheduled for us based on um previous debt that stayed fairly steady. And then you'll also notice that in fund 39, our referendum debt service, this is referendum debt um that we decreased in order to offset that increase in fund 10. We are still defeasing, meaning we are going to levy more than our payment is. That helps with interest savings over time. Um that is how we stabilize the total dollar amount in terms of what we are asking from our tax levy. There is a breakdown you can see as well by municipalities in terms of how that distribution is um and property values within each of those cities, townships, villages
018um impacts as well how much that impacts those particular um groups or municipalities. I'm going to dig into the budget a little bit more. Um, first I just want to give some budget perspectives. Just think a school district budget, it's a plan for spending that supports goals and the mission of the school districts. However, changes can happen. Uh, we don't know exactly weather conditions that can certainly impact utility costs. There could be change in personnel as people um come and go, replacements, benefit selection, all those things can change. Um, and there certainly can be unexpected maintenance needs, which we all know happened last year, for example, pipes at the junior high. So when you're looking at a total budget of over $und00 million, a 1% variance at year end is a million dollars. So even
019if you come within a million dollars, you're within 1% of your budget. Um so even though that dollar amount seems large, just think of that in perspective of total budget amounts. So the other thing I want to point out as I go through this is a balanced budget. When we say we have a balanced budget, that just means revenues equals expenditures. So when we're setting budgets, we are both budgeting revenue and expenditures and changes in either one can could ultimately impact how the year ends. Um in Wisconsin with revenue limits, that tax levy and that aid, that's most of our revenue that is set and it's going to end the year that way. We know that. So that's pretty steady. But there are other variables. The other thing that we'll take a look at through
020much of this or if you're looking at your materials is fund balance. And that is um a point in time. So on June 30th of the previous year, that is the difference um between assets and liabilities um at the end of that fiscal year. It's important to know that that's not a savings account or a separate cash account or bank account. That is how the year ended. Um and even though and we'll say for example in fund 10 we'll look at was just over $20 million. That doesn't mean we have $20 million in the bank throughout the year. um with school districts, although we are paying um bills, paying our staff, there's payroll runs consistently, our revenue comes in somewhat inconsistently and so that fund balance helps to change that. So we talk about that
021with cash flow and our cash flow falls far below that fund balance at different times in the year. Uh most districts have a gap in funding for capital project needs and so utilizing fund 46, which we'll talk about a little bit later, is a way to help assist with capital project needs as well. So I just want to hit on the funds. We often say operational funds are fund 10 and fund 27. Fund 10 is our general fund. That's the largest fund where most of the general operations happens. Fund 27, as a reminder, is our special education fund. So the two of those together are our general operations where other funds have unique um and set purposes. Um and at the end of each year, um typically the revenue that we get for special ed
022versus our costs falls short. So we always do a transfer from 10 to 27 because 27 has to end the year at zero. No fund balance revenues equaling expenses at year end. Other funds that I'll mention are fund 21, that's special revenue funds. That essentially is our student activity accounts. um SBA, we often refer to them here at DCE, but that are student activity accounts for clubs and organizations. It's also where we keep donations. Fund 38 and 39 is our debt. 46 is that long-term capital improvement trust fund. That is a separate bank account trust fund where we can make transfers or year-end deposits, but you can only spend for capital projects and only if a district has a 10-year plan. Fund 50 is our food service. So it's specifically just to food service. 72
023is scholarships. 73 we won't hit on but just as much tonight, but that's our post employment benefit fund. And fund 80 is community service fund. When we look at all of these funds together, where does our money come from? Um or revenues come from that lighter blue, the biggest piece of that pie as you can see is almost 60% that is from the state. the next largest that little it's more of a royal blue I would call it local. Um so that is largely that revenue limit that is going to be your tax levy in your state. There are some state grants gate gate receipts and things as well but that's largely where our revenue is coming from. Um the next notable one uh federal funds account for for this year anyway is about 5.4%.
024Um that orange um is going to be open enrollment. Um and then there are some other things as well but just gives a concept of that state and f or the especially the revenue limit and the impacts on our revenue. How do we spend our money? Again looking at all funds the largest piece is salaries. Sorry didn't advance. Sorry the blue is salaries. That orange is benefits. Most school districts we would say about twothirds of your budget is spent on on your people. That's I would often say that's our most valuable resource. our teachers, our staff that are supporting the learning of our students. The gray, the next um largest piece is purchase services. That can be anything from paying our utilities to paying the bus company. We're paying another entity to support us. Um
025and then supplies, capital, projects, insurance, judgments, etc. So, that's just how the pie works out in terms of how we're um spending our money. I'll dig into operations or fund 10. We have a long if you want to see the long detailed I get I put a summary in our slides. Um the fund balance as I mentioned before is just over 20.4 million that was last year and starting the year. We have a balanced budget so we intend to to end the year with that as well. We have a balanced budget of just over $82.2 million um both in revenue and expenses. for special education. Um our budget this year is just over 15.1 million. We are currently um have a budget transfer in the amount of just over 8.2 million. That's the transfer I
026talked about from 10 to 27. That exact amount will be um determined at year end when all costs are done. Um that will make that transfer. Fund 21. Um, if you look at year-over-year, oh, sorry, I was a slide behind. Sorry about that. Fund 21, our donations and our student activity accounts. Um, I outlined the budget. You'll probably see that why is the budget so small and it grows throughout the year. This is so so much dependent on what clubs and activities, how much they fundra, how much they spend um each club and each activity. So, this is something in our monthly bunch budget transfers. We always keep their budget with what's in their account. And so this continually updates or often increases throughout the year. As they um fund raise, get funds um uh
027it'll end the year quite differently than how it started. Um so I just want to point that out, but we keep track of that based on how much comes in. Funds 38 and 39 are our debt. As I mentioned, 38 is non-referendum debt for energy efficiency. That is a scheduled amount. In 2526, our referendum debt levy um is just over 8.9 million. Once again, we do plan to defease additional debt. Um meaning we will defeze more and pay more for for future interest savings. And this year, I did want to highlight this will be five years of defeasance. So this will be year six. You can see historically those defeasence amounts and how much interest savings that's resulted in. So we have nearly prior to this year almost $10 million in interest savings from the
028defeasance we've done in the last five years. Um debt defeasence is a good tool to use as we see different shifts on however that state budget or property values um play out as the year ends. As I mentioned we may see fluctuations. So making adjustments to our debt to fees and steing adjusting those amounts allows us to keep a stable um ask of our taxpayers in terms of levy. 46 again is our capital improvement fund. That is a trust fund. This is a separate bank account at year end for example. Um we ended the year um you'll notice it perfectly balanced. That is because we made a transfer on June 30th just over $2.3 million into our capital improvement fund. Um, just to give context as well, so our balance after that transfer was just
029over 4.1 million at year end. Um, when I pulled this on earlier this month, it was just over 2.9 million. Because we do a lot of our projects, our capital projects in the summer, quite a bit of spending happened in July and August. We also have planned about a half a million dollars of remaining projects this year um in in through June. That's our best estimate. Uh, we have not budgeted the full amount in there. Um Jason Jablonsky and I have talked about that and what's nice to have a balance in there is in the event we have an unexpected emergency or capital emergency, we do have funds to go to. The other thing is over time if we can build up that balance, we might be able to take on a larger project item,
030an uh a project that has higher costs than we can absorb in our regular budget. Um so I would imagine that we would end our year with with some balance and we may be able to do a contribution at year end as well. food service fund. Um you will see this one is and I mentioned in in previous board meetings for those that have been in attendance, we don't have this balance. There's our budget is um expenditure slightly over revenue. However, we'll continue to monitor this um and make adjustments and hope to end the year um balance without dipping into fund balance. The year ended at $386,000 of of fund balance. You will see a big drop in that fund balance. That's largely due to the project that we did at the senior high. Um
031it was over two fiscal years but um that is where a large amount of that fund balance went from 2324 until how the year ended last year. And finally we have our community service fund fund 80. Um for us we do pay or tax our tax levy is a total of $450,000. our SRO's we do support um part of the funding for our SRO comes from fund 80 and the other portion goes to GTCC. We have not changed this levy amount um or the amount given to GTCC in several years. Uh if you look at the difference of the budget in shifting to the budget 2324 to 2425 we opened our new building and therefore programming opened. Um so you'll see a big jump in the budget. You'll notice in 2526 there's other um also
032a large difference. This is because this year we intend to do um the addition we're going to add cooling to the arena and replacement of the hockey chiller that is going to be fully funded through donations that will actually be approved I think um at the board meeting following this um the annual meeting. So you will see a big increase in both revenue and expenses because we are budgeting both for the donations and costs will likely go back down to similar to 2425 potentially a little bit um above or below in the following year but wanted to point out that difference again balanced. Thank you and I'm open to any questions if anyone has any questions. I think you're off the hook. >> I can't turn this on. >> And with that, we will adjourn
033that budget hearing. And we will call the 76th annual school district meeting of the DC school um district to order. Uh next up is the reading of the office notice of meeting. Notice is hereby given to the qualified electors for the DC Everest area school district comprised of the villages of Hatley, Rothschild and Weston, city of Scoffield and towns of Easton, Ringle and Weston, Marathon County and such parts of the city of Wasau, village of Cronawwater and the towns of Nory, Reed and Wasa, Marathon County as are in said district that the budget hearing for the 2025 2026 school year will be held in the DC Everest administration building 6100 Alderson Street Weston. Wisconsin 54476 on the 22nd day of October 2025 at 6 p.m. Detailed copies of the budget are available at the district
034business office at 6100 Alderson Street West in Wisconsin 54476 and posted on our district website with the link listed in the materials. Immediately following the budget hearing, the annual meeting will be held in the same location. Schoolboard members will attend this meeting as private citizens. No official schoolboard action will be taken dated the 17th day of October, 2025. Thank you. And with that, Robert's rules of order will pre prevail for this meeting. Local attorney Davis Rundy of the Weld Riley Law Firm is present as parliamentarian. During the annual meeting portion of the meeting, there will be motions acted upon. Participants will be recognized by the presiding officer and are asked to please clearly state their name and address before beginning their motion, send or remarks. Only district residents may participate in this meeting. And with
035that, I will now accept nominations for the election of the chairperson of this annual meeting 2137. I nominate. >> Uh, with that I have to ask three times. Are there any additional nominations? Is there a second to the nomination? I'll second Katie Felch 226102 County Road J Western Wisconsin 54476. All right. Um are there any additional nominations? Hearing none, this requires a voice vote. All those in favor state I. I. Um and with that, I will presside on the meeting. Um next up is read and approve the treasurer's report. dispensing 5403. I move to dispense for the reading of the treasury department. >> Is there a second to the motion? >> Second, Jason 1837. >> This requires a voice vote. All those in favor uh of approving the treasures report state I. >> I. >>
036Any oppose? That passes. Next up is school board salaries. Is there a motion to set the school board salaries for 2526 at $3,100? >> My grade 37 school board 54476. I move to set the school board for the 2526 school year at 3,100. >> Is there a second? >> 620 to Daniel Drive Wisconsin 54476. Second, >> is there any discussion on this motion? Hearing none, this requires a voice vote. All those in favor state I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Abstain. Thank you. Um, next, is there a motion to provide reimbursement for of the schoolboard expenses per bylaw 0144.1? Is there a second to that motion? >> Is there any additional discussion on this >> hearing? None. This requires a voice vote. All those in favor state I. Any opposed? That passes. Uh, next we
037will set the 2526 tax levy. Is there a motion to set the 2526 tax levy at Go ahead Lambert Street. I need to set the 125 20.6 tax 25,5. >> Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? >> Secondary 06 Avenue for child. >> Is there any additional discussion on that hearing? None. This requires a voice vote. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? That passes. Um, and with that, uh, is there a motion to allow the school board to set the time and place of the 2026 annual district meeting? >> I move 1837 during the trail. I move to allow the school board to set the place of the 2026. >> Is there a second? >> Is there any additional discussion on this one? Hearing none, this requires a
038voice vote. All those in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? That motion passes. And with that, we will adjourn the the meeting.