001I call the June 8th, 2026 schoolboard budget workshop to order. It is 5:03 p.m. We are in conference room C of the Fisher Administration Building at 12121 West North Avenue. Now we'll call the role. Miss Bach >> here. >> Mr. Bower >> here. Mr. >> Brazinski >> here. >> Roland, Miss Lamer's >> here. >> Mr. Watt here >> and I am here. We will now um do our adjourment into workshop. The time is 5:03 p.m. May I have a motion to adjourn into a workshop? >> I move to enter workshop. >> Thank you. May I have a second? >> Thank you, Mr. Wier. >> Miss Bach, >> yes. >> Mr. Bower, >> yes. >> Miss Brazinski, >> yes. >> Miss Hammer, not here. Um, Miss Lamers, >> yes. >> Mr. Watier, >> yes. >> And
002I'm a yes. Okay. So, we move to number three, board activity and discussion. >> All yours. Just a reminder, this is being recorded. So, please make sure that the microphones are um active for you and it's not being broadcast but is being >> Let me find the item. >> I think I I think I have it too just opening. So, while this is opening, the purpose today is to have an additional opportunity for the board, the community to um discuss uh the budget prior to the budget hearing which will be held on July 20th. So, normally or traditionally, we've had that one opportunity as well as at any board meeting. This is just an additional opportunity. Uh just to make the the board aware, this is also an agenda item uh on today's agenda. So
003what I'm going through now will be a repeat um at some point after 6:00. Let me just start the slideshow here. So we are um I would say about in the middle of our um budgetary planning. Uh the board this started with the board uh approving a kind of budget parameters in December. Um since that time we've crossed several milestones. Uh we've uh given employee increases. We have our health insurance notice. Uh we've gotten a rates for things like property insurance. So uh each month we're kind of able to triangulate things a little bit better. Uh this was presented to the finance committee. This the May meeting I believe, right? Yeah. We haven't had June yet. to the main meeting. Um, and I've added one slide there that is hopefully a little um, that's we
004find helpful. And this is our first look at really the overall I'm going to call it operating budgets. That's fund 10 and fund 27. So the general fund and the special ed fund. Uh, that's really the bulk of um, our day-to-day budgets. The other budgets we have are debt service, uh, community service, that'd be recreation and food service. So um the main thing that I I that I want to highlight is well Dr. Means and I were talking earlier today. It was about two years ago at this time a little more than this that um I I started uh and one of the first things that we discovered was a budget shortfall. So we've u been able to make a real strategic financial pivot since that point. Um that was 2324 that we had in
005the unexpected shortfall. Um for next year we're budgeting a surplus of roughly half a million dollars. So that is on top of we expect to finish better than budget this year for 2526. So that will be two consecutive years. Actually we finished better than budget last year too. So three consecutive years of better than budget. This will be the first year that we will be adding money into fund balance. This would have been the second year in a row had we not had the property tax chargeback. Um I'm calling this an operating surplus of 410,000 because we'll really be putting about 3.5 million plus the 400,000 into fund balance next year. Again, three and a half million of that is the chargeback that went out one year and in another year. So, our true operating
006surplus, uh what you think of as like your home budget surplus is about 400,000 next year. Um we've done this. Uh again, our goals though are building our fund balance back towards 15%. So, we're incrementally trying to get there. um at the same time maintaining the lowest class sizes and student teacher ratio in the region. Uh to do that we've reduced um administrative FTEES as well as some um teacher FTES or certified staff FTEES. We've increased teacher pay about 5.2% and we've budgeted uh for investment into new curriculum. So I want to explain the graphs that'll be upcoming a little bit. Each time you see a gray line, you'll see the um it has they're they're both 2026, but what it's comparing is I'll kind of hover over it. This is 2026 budget versus where
007I think the year is going to end. Okay, so the last budget was approved approximately February. It may have been March. I don't remember exactly when. Um but based on the monthly updates the board has been getting, here's where I now think we'll end. So anytime you see two gray lines, it's comparing budget versus projected actual. And the blue is always going to be in this case, you can see past years. So we were spending down our fund balance. Now we're starting to build it back up, right? So um you can see the big jump here is because of in in large part the property tax chargeback, but also that 400,000. So on the trend back up. Okay. Again, I've got two gray bars here comparing our budget to our projection. So that you is
008what you've seen every month. Um we are going to finish the year better than budget. What I really want to highlight for uh this session is next year's budget over here. So we're budgeting revenue of 13 roughly 135 million. You can see the main categories and I'll talk about those a little bit more in the future slides and expenses of 131 million. That yields a $3.9 million surplus. Again, that three and a half million of that is that chargeback that we're getting back. So, roughly a $400,000 operating or year-over-year surplus. Any questions about any slides so far? it gets a little more fun the next few. Okay, so this is a picture of our revenue in our uh again those two main funds, our special education fund and our general operating fund. So you can
009see on the graph here on the on the piraphph, our total revenues are budgeted to increase about 4.4%. Um, and as far as how our revenues split out, our local sources, so that primarily property taxes is about that's the largest piece of the pie about 58%. And at our work session last week, you kind of learned more about where we fit with the the total state there. Our state sources, so that's going to be both equalized aid and categorical aid, is roughly a quarter, you know, 24% of the of the revenue budget. Federal sources 2% and then for us our other sources which is primarily open enrollment students coming in is about 16%. The biggest change yearover-year we're going to see on uh the upcoming slides is I've gotten ultraconservative and budgeted the maximum statutory
010allowed decrease in state aid of 15%. So, we won't have uh a better indicator on that until July 1st. On July 1st, DPI is uh statutoily required to send us a state aid estimate. I'm hoping it's better news than the maximum 15%. But I'd rather present something that shows a worst case scenario from a tax standpoint than get too aggressive that way. the state aid won't impact it won't impact the overall size of the pie or in other terms it won't impact the overall amount of revenue. What it could change is the share that's yellow versus the share that's blue. So if we get good news from the state, it will increase our yellow piece which would then shrink our taxes. Any questions there? This is a picture of our revenue. So each uh color
011here is a different year. Again, the grays are both going to be 2026. So um what I'm highlighting for you is this is local sources. So each year going back to 2023 what we captured in local sources again each year going back to 2023 what we captured in state sources federal and then other. So the the main thing we can see here is taxes we'll say relatively flat for 23 24 and 25 right last year was the first year that we had the operating referendum was put on the tax. So that's why we see uh the the you can you can visually see the increase in local sources there. We're anticipating again another increase this fall. That's in part due to the property tax chargeback, but also if we do in fact lose that 15%
012of state aid that's made up with property taxes. So that that jump next saying next year I guess it's now almost this year uh October is due to those two uh reasons. You can see our state sources have have remained um very very consistent and that would be similar for nearly every district in the state. Um at best the state has kept up with kind of revenue cap inflation. Um it could be argued they're not even keeping up with that. They certainly aren't keeping up with the original twothirds funding that was promised back in 1993 199 1994 federal sources. Anyone know what this kind of increase would have been from? You didn't know there'd be a quiz. So I'll just sort of check understanding here. Um anyone know what this increase in federal sources might
013have been? >> Exactly. Yeah. >> The staff the emotional [clears throat] master dollars which we decided to use them that way. Yeah. >> Yeah. So you're both you're Dr. Worley's 100% right. Sarah, you're about 80% right. You're thinking expenses which is what we used this >> money for the money which we used for that. Okay. >> But you can visually see the ESR money, right? Increasing and now that's gone. So we can see the increase and then the decrease. in large part our other money. Um you can see we we were slightly increasing open enrollment now we started to draw down. So that is you know on a slow kind of downward uh trend. Now we're pivoting to expenses. Okay. So um the largest uh piece of our our expense budget is our salaries and
014benefits about 76%. Um, and the largest increase year-over-year then is also normally going to be salaries and expenses, right? If or salaries and benefits, if that's the biggest piece of the pie and you do anything other than freeze, that's also going to yield the largest increase. So year-over-year, that's generally our largest increase. In this case, the next year we budgeted 5.2% for teacher salaries, 4% for other staff, and about 7.7% for health insurance. The yellow piece of the pie does get a little bit bigger every year. Um I guess yeah, not bigger. Um they both increase proportionally. Uh because we also have to budget for essentially inflationary costs that get passed along to us from vendors we use. So could be our cleaning service, could be our transportation company. Um there's almost no vendor uh
015unless inflation is zero that is able to pass along a zero. Um this year with many of our uh non-health insuranceances we got almost zero. So that was a celebratory uh line item. One thing we have noticed and um those of you that maybe track the stock market at all, the cost of our computer replacement is increasing pretty exponentially as the ability to get chips and RAM is is um becoming more difficult. The supply and demand there is is causing costs to go up there. So that's something increasing more than the rate [clears throat] of inflation. Hey, so Chris, this is a new slide um for everyone. This wasn't at the finance committee. What this slide is is it is a breakdown of the yellow piece. So um often people say where are you know
016the things that aren't salaries and benefits where are those expenses? Right? So the very least would be up here. This equipment components would be almost nothing down to the most. And I've got here both the woofar code. So that's the number you see with it as long as well as for those that aren't self-explanatory and kind of an explanation. And I tried to tease out the ones that were maybe um most um [clears throat] that stood out the most. So I'm going to begin from the bottom up because that's the most expensive. So these will be our intergovernmental payments. So basically that's payments to other educational entities that are public. So payments to other school districts, CISAs, um and in large part that is our open enrollment students going out. It is things like uh
017uh tuition to colleges or students in dual enrollment. It is the voucher program. It's um tuition for students that are taking classes at other in uh uh secondary schools. Uh that's the largest outgoing piece of the pie outside of salaries and benefits. property services maybe maybe not surprisingly that's our cost for custodial services a line item almost for flood restoration uh HBAC controls even things like copers so um things that we uh pay essentially kind of other people to do for us the 370s that's what's called non-government payments the biggest cost there is our substitutes um as well as tuition at private institutions for some of our high need uh special ed students or students with um real challenges. As we work our way up, uh supplies I thought was self-explanatory. That's going to be
018consumables. Um not just pencils, paper, but anything essentially under about $1,000 that you don't expect to use for more than say three years. Many of those things might be just a one-year use, but essentially something consumable. Things that fall under personal services, that's things like legal, um, not our health insurance itself, but the management, and we're we're self-insured. We hire someone to help us manage that. So, that is that falls there. Uh, we have an EAP, our audit, architects, engineers, uh, NEOLA that the the board works with. Those are all kind of personal services. EAD. >> Oh, employee assistance program. >> Oh, yeah. Okay. Um, >> many of you probably have that through your employer as well, I would imagine. Offers free counseling, financial counseling, things like that to employees. Most employers have it now.
019Uh, 360s are tech and software services. really not not so much on the student side, kind of on the um I hate to say administration side because it's not just administration but sort of the backend tools uh including phones. So we don't have a line item for phones anymore. I remember when I first started in this field there was a utility would have a phone utility. All of that is for instance through our software provider now. So that's Infinite Campus, Skyward, our telephones, things like Zoom and Web Meetings, Microsoft Office, all those things. We pay for 340s. The bulk of that is our student travel. Uh both um both students traveling regular day-to-day that in our district that's limited to uh homeless Mckin Vento students, our students that have an IEP and co-curricular travel. Staff
020travel is also there but that is like uniscope. Then we have 480s that'd be our non- capital technology. So technology that that doesn't last as long as say a server or wireless. So um laptops, iPads, Chromebooks, things like that. 710's are district insurance. So non-health insurance, property, workers comp, liability. And then 430s is the other one that stands out. That's our instructional media. Think of that as most of the things that are in the lab or libraries. >> Any questions about this stuff? We had a few come up, but I kind of ran through it fast, too. >> So, in a lot of districts that um 340 would be one of the biggest bars >> travel. >> Yeah, >> probably. Um 380 would would be high for many districts as well because almost all have
021vouchers. Um, if you're a district that is a loser for open enrollment, like a net loss, um, and I think of that would be someone like that. Oh, Green Bay loses a lot of students to the Pier or Swamo. Um, their 380 would probably still be very high. And then I bet for most districts, the next would be 340 TRA. >> Okay. Thank you. And much like the revenues I just am highlighting here for the last several years, here's our salaries and benefits. So what happened here is this is the year of both the raise for people and adding additional SSR staff. So that's why we see a relatively large jump and then pretty consistent, you know, from that point. our other objects. Uh again, we did add some costs with esser uh and then
022has remained pretty consistent since then. Other things we built in the budget for this year, uh we were able to squeeze uh about $100,000 into the buildings and grounds budget. So that's kind of a good news, bad news thing. Um, we need that to offset the increased cost that we get from our contracted custodial provider GS. The reason I say it's good news, bad news is in the past, uh, Kevin's budget kind of had to had to suck that up. So Kevin's budget wouldn't increase and he'd get a we pass along an increase from somewhere else to him, which effectively decreased his budget. So at least we're able to keep him whole this year. Uh we've got $1.5 million assigned for curriculum materials or curriculum adoptions and we've dedicated uh $80,000 um potentially to enhance
023infrastructure and wireless capabilities across the district. So here's our remaining budget steps. We actually um this was presented to the finance committee in May last week presented to PTA council. Uh we're on June 8th right now. So that is here. The next um action the board will take will be simply adopt or not adoption approval of a preliminary budget for publication. So, prior to our budget hearing, we have to publish the budget in a newspaper um and pay for that. Uh the newspaper lobbyists have done a good job of keeping that going. Um so, we ask the board for approval. I publish it. That's in advance of our budget hearing on July 20th, which is kind of the normal time when we invite community and we have a broader budget presentation. I'll have a budget
024booklet at that point and then you can see the remaining steps. The budget isn't actually the final budget's not approved until October 26th when we know what our actual tax levy is going to be um after state aid certification on October 15. So we are at the top of this chart but like I said about halfway through the budget season and we'll finish right around November 1st. I think that's the last line. Yeah, >> guidelines really helpful. >> That's right. Thank you. >> If people wanted to know more about the technology uh project that we're addressing, you can always go to the uh meeting from May. Um it's on YouTube and you can take a look at it there. But for those who don't want the in-depth, can you give us the highline of what's
025going on with the technology system? >> Yeah, we're we're reaching end of life with our um I I call them wireless and switches. Uh someone in that field may know them better than I, but end of life on that infrastructure. Um it's a it's an expensive uh uh what what this district has done in the past is kind of like it had a large fund balance. So when something like that reached end of life, they would send out the old, bring in the new and spend a million dollars. Um we don't have that luxury anymore. So it's the cost is still there. What I'm looking to do is how can we put some things on a replacement cycle so that we're not on this kind of full um how can we replace things on a
026cycle that we can still afford year to year and fit in the budget. So that's what what Jamie and I what Jamie's working on primarily is what do we need? What's the right fit for the district? Um I think Jason you were at the I think he started talking about this in April, didn't he? Um, and then what I'm working on is how do we fit that within some kind of cycle so that we're not faced with these peaks and valleys of we have no cost for 10 years and all of a sudden we have a huge cost. Frankly, we have kind of done that with our buildings too. Um, so that that is a a culture I'd like to move away from uh from a budget stand. Yeah, that's >> over on slide five,
027you talked about revenue. Um, and again in the FNR meeting, you talked about why you chose negative 15%. Uh, can you give us a highline for that? So we have um normally we've had years in our district where uh because of the way the debt was really um was really crafty structured in 2018. Uh so you know big kudos to the board administration and bar for crafting it that way at the time um where we would essentially do sort of you think of it as like a double mortgage payment in one year and no mortgage payment the following year. And that allowed us to save a lot of money on what they call shared costs. So the what the state when the state determines how much aid you get, they look at two things. How
028wealthy are you as a district and how much did you spend? And in years that we spent less, we benefited by getting more state aid. In the years we spent more, which had been the years of I'll call the mortgage payment or bond payment, we um got less state aid. Now our we still have that structure in place but with our um investment in teaching in primarily teaching staff salaries we have I think we've now at the point where even years that we don't have that payment we're still going to be spending it at a high enough level that we're not going to get any relief. So, we've kind of reached that threshold where I'm not anticipating that relief and I at this point conservatively rather anticipate a 15% decrease and hope for good news
029um than expect something else. So, the next major milestone will be July 1st when DPI sends out their um estimate. That's helpful. The the difficult part about that estimate is it is it's only as good as the budget data that every district across the state has sent DPI. So, um now that our board updates our budget, we always send our updated budget to DPI. So, they use our budget in that formula. But if other districts aren't doing that and they're using whatever they approved in October or whenever, it's not going to be that [clears throat] accurate. Um, so it'll it'll be a good indicator though of whether we're going to lose the full 15% or not. I thought of another way to describe that too. And if if I want to test this out with
030this group. Um so um so I follow I I like sports a lot and I follow the contracts in sports and um several years ago and really all the major sports they in they've instituted things called salary caps and the um and the the goal there was that they would remember back when I was a kid they'd always talk about Milwaukee as being like a low revenue generating city and they could never compete with New York in baseball because New York had all the money and they owned the TV stations and how could a small town like Milwaukee ever compete? And so they they put these salary caps in place and then um and the NBA did something similar and so they all have these salary caps and in particular in the NBA what they
031said is okay you can exceed your salary cap but if you do that we're going to tax you. So someone like Golden State right now um is above the salary cap, which they're allowed to do, but when they go above the salary cap, they have to send additional money, a tax to the NBA, and the NBA sends a portion of that money to all the other NBA teams. That's kind of what happens with shared plus. So when a when a district, us or anyone else goes above that threshold, it's almost like the NBA tax where they say, "Okay, um, Golden State, I'm glad you can afford all that. Everyone else in the NBA can't, so we're going to burden you with this tax and we're going to give it to everybody else to try and
032keep and the NBA be keep things competitive." In Wisconsin, they do it to try and keep um an equitable education for students whether they're in Superior or Oaklair or Platville. >> I'm sorry. >> This seems to be workable now. >> Okay, good. >> So, we're we're to the point where we might have some dead cap space. Uh yeah, we so we used to be the way the way it was set up is one year we'd be Golden State, one year we'd be New Orleans, uh and then the next year would be Golden State and the next year New Orleans. I don't I don't think we're I mean Golden State is probably the most expensive right now. That's not us, but we're there's more than one team that gets taxed. We in that analogy we would
033be one of those teams that is giving more money out than collecting in Uh, I have a question for the board. Um, Liz has heard the presentation. Now, you've all heard the presentation. It's agenda. Give me some feedback for what you would like at the I could do the exact same thing uh at the regular board meeting or I can adjust it to your to your will. I but I need some feedback there. I think tying in the the more explanation about the 15% right up front while you're while it's there on the slide might a little more efficient might be [clears throat] better to to bring bring that analogy in or or something similar um so that we're not necessarily like asking questions about the same Thank you. Should he go faster? >> That's
034kind of what you want. Do you want the same pace and cadence or I mean on one end would be are it's going to take exactly as long as it did right now. The other end would be we've discussed this at finance committee. We had a budget work session. If anyone wants to take a look at it, go ahead. Those would be the two extremes and there be anything in the middle. And you spent think I'm glad that you did, but on slide eight you went through those different line items. >> I'm okay if you don't quite read. >> Yeah, that or that you could start off by saying that people really want to dig into the detail on these slides, watch >> and download it or whatever. >> Okay. look at or watch the
035>> tell them to reference this video that will be online >> okay with the regular regular meeting >> I still think you should walk >> so I'll hit the highlights as a little quicker I won't I won't do the in depth >> yeah I think people may plan to come up and watch tonight I see on the agenda so >> very good >> yeah okay we can move on to number four is the adjournment of this Okay. >> So, the time is 5:36 p.m. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Bower. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Bzinski. Um, I'll call the role. Miss Bach, >> yes. >> Mr. Bower, >> yes. >> Miss Bzinski, >> yes. >> Time rolland is excused. Miss
036Lamers, >> yes. >> Mr. here. >> Yes. >> And I'm a yes. The motion carries. This workshop is adjourned. We will reopen our general meeting at six o'clock.