001And the mics are live. >> Mics are live. Mics are >> on your best behavior, Mr. Kusky. >> Yes, sir. No follow language. We'll speak administration. >> Not like Aaron Rogers last year. >> Yeah, exactly. Oh my god. >> What happened? >> Not like got caught on national TV. >> What did he say? Don't say it. Don't say [laughter] it. Don't say it. >> But it was hurt. >> That [snorts] was the last word. Yeah. They missed the pass and then they showed his reaction. >> Oh, >> I need to have this set up. >> And I'm like, whoa. >> And it was >> all right. It is 5:00. >> We will call the budget hearing meeting to order. Roll call, please. >> Phil Henl, >> here. Kevin Jensen >> here. >> Marian Vabra, >>
002Bert Richard >> here, >> Nelly Sher >> here, >> Doug Kuchko, Lori Zarbach >> here, >> Don Kusky >> here, >> and Andrew Coup >> here. >> And was a proper notice given for this meeting? >> Yes. Please be advised that public notice of this meeting as required by sections 19.84 and 65.90 of the Wisconsin statutes has been properly given. Such notice consisted of a notice and agenda to the official newspaper, the Rice Lake chroner type, to the Oaklair leader, and to radio stations WGMC and WAQE indicating the date, time, and place of the meeting. Such notice was given more than 24 hours prior to the meeting. >> Thank you. It does appear that a proper notice was given for this meeting. We will now move into the presentation of the 2526 school district budget.
003[snorts] And I will start by welcoming all of our community here to uh to the meeting. Welcome. And uh uh this budget meeting is being held to provide a final approval for the district's operating budget and to provide district residents an opportunity to gain information on the 2526 school district budget. One of the main responsibilities of the board of education is to ensure that this budget is developed to maintain a sound financial footing for the district. This is one of our most important responsibilities. The budget has been prepared by staff and administration with the board oversight and is based upon district needs. The preliminary property tax levy information. one, our tax levy will be $21,86,899 for the 2526 budget. The district's mill rate will decrease by 2.4%. This is due in large part to the
004increased property values. State aid decreased to the district by 1,465,446 for the 2526 school year. So, as we go back to the mill rate, just to uh let our community know, in 2020 2021 school year, the mill rate was $10.84 per thousand for the 2526 uh proposed that we're proposing tonight is $767 per thousand. So, almost $3 less than we were back in 2021. The Rice Lake ranked ninth in mill rate as compared to the 39 school districts in our CSA 11 for the 24-25 school year. And for the 2526 school year, the district's state equalized aid is estimated to be 12,927,518, a decrease of1,465,446 [clears throat] from the aid amount received from the 2425 school year of 14,392 $392,000. and the debt [snorts] service. Victor will be talking about the debt service and where
005we're at with that later in the uh presentation, but now I will turn it over to Mr. Drossst. >> Yeah, just a few things to say um before Victor Dross um talks more about the numbers. Uh but the budget is our our financial plan to achieve the goals uh in the district and and overall academic excellence. It's it complies with board of ed policies that you've approved and provides the necessary resources to continue existing programs as well as um some other um initiatives throughout the school district. And the process really begins uh in December. And so with it being October already and just a a few short months, a couple short months, we'll actually start working on next year's budget. Uh but in December, we start uh reviewing enrollment and financial projections. Um in January,
006um you get a chance to review preliminary projections and um those budget documents get distributed to uh the various schools and departments uh to start working on the budget for the following year. In March, uh you approve a preliminary staffing report um that is used to plan for the following year's budget and then in April uh you approve uh the full-fledged staffing report for the following year. Uh also in April uh there's a preliminary budget to the business office and in June as a board you do a budget review and now here we are in October where we have a public hearing. Uh that budget is also published in the chronotype. Ruth, thanks for all you do for the district. And then we're at the point where at our regular meeting here in a little
007while, uh, we would approve ask you as a board to approve, uh, the tax levy. And so, and I'm going to kick it over to Victor if there's anything he wants to add on, you know, revenue limits or anything like that, but then he's going to get into, uh, the numbers that have been put together. >> That's part of the document. So, I'll just talk about that when we get to the document. [clears throat] So, we'll start with the executive budget summary. Oh, this one. >> Yeah, that looks right. [clears throat] >> So, the first page basically, as Randy said, it kind of talks through the budget timelines, just says that today is a legally adapted budget. So, um, for legal reasons, today is our budget that you adopted. And the bottom there kind of
008shows our levy, uh, our mill rate, um, compared to the state total. You can see we're still above the state average, but we're getting closer to the state average. So, that's good. Um, it's all I had on the first page. Second page is a revenue limit R was talking about. So, they've been around since 1993. Basically, it state has a big complicated calculation that determines the amount of revenue that you can raise through property taxes and the state equalization aid. Um part of that calculation is the enrollment. So for 2526 are FTEES which they take your student enrollment and um uh 4K [clears throat] is only at 60%. Then they add back your revenue or your open enrollment outs open Roman ins to get FTE count. So for this year, we're down 22 for regular
009enrollment, but for summer school, we were up 34 because of the extra classes we had in August. So total FTE is up 12 for 2526. Um school choice program, that's the private schools can get the vouchers. Basically, the vouchers for 2526, the number 622,453. As you can see, it's up 59,000 from last year. About a 10% increase. So, essentially, we levy the taxes and then they the voucher school gets the money. The bottom of that page shows a per pupil spending comparisons. We're a little bit lower than the statewide average for prepal per pupil spending. As you can see, we're pretty compar comparative to the other um Big River schools. Anybody any questions on that or [cough and clears throat] All righty. The next page is the budget numbers and I'll basically go through that
010when I get to addendum A. So we'll kind of skip that page. I guess if anybody has any questions I can go over it, but you're going to talk about it. >> Yeah. When we get to add A, that's the detail. So these are high level numbers. Um, so page four, I guess the main points on here is, as Kevin said, has our debt outstanding. As of June of 25, we have $12.1 million outstanding for debt. Um, 968,000 is for the middle school projects. We have two more payments on that. And then, uh, 11.1 million is the referendum from 2013. Also on there is our OPED trust by DPI requirements. We have to publish our OPED trust um results for the year. I guess at the end of the year we we ended we started
011the year with 4.2 million in the trust. We made we made contributions of 575,000 plus um some some retirees got to pay their own premiums or the difference on the premiums and then our payment our cost for the year was 531,000 and then so the trust ended up with 4.8 million at the end of the year. Um it's all half of that page. >> I guess the bottom has a chart breakout of our [clears throat] expenditures. >> Yeah. Victor, can I stop you? Is our oped then considered fully funded? >> Long ways from fully funded. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Just asking. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not fully funded. Just for >> we need 15, >> but we're in a lot better shape on our OPED than some school districts. >> Yes, we are.
012>> Most school districts, I would say. >> Yeah. We'd need like 15 million to be fully funded. So, >> we're a little ways from that. So, All right, any other questions or last page um kind of has a summary of our fund 80 information. Um, so for 2526, our fund 80 will be used to pay for the boys and girls club subsidy, middle school athletics, the swimming pool, the PSLO positions, the child care that we're now running, and the community center will be this year we paying for construction, and then going forward will be the operational cost. Um, see then on the bottom there it kind of gives a a chart of our equalized value change in equalized valuation. Uh we're up 11.75% this year. You can see the huge increase in equalized valuation which
013has been seen by the whole state. So it's pretty comparable. I guess I'll take any questions if you have any there. >> [clears throat] >> All righty. You can you comment on whether the average person's going to see their tax bill go up or level because the mill rate's going to go down. Our valuations are up. [clears throat] Just so people understand that. >> Uh I think it' be better, we have a whole sheet on that. It be better to talk about that when we get there because the numbers are right right there. So >> because it kind of depends on where you live, doesn't it? >> Yes. Yeah. Right. Did your share of did your share of the pie go up or down would be the is the question. Yeah. >> Right. In your
014municipality, >> right? Exactly. So, denda A is the I'll call the meat and potatoes of the of the budget numbers. Um I'll just go through a reminder of the funds. So, we have DPI requires um different funds for specific cost. So, fund 10 is a general operating fund. And that's basically your majority of your budget is in there. Um, special education has its own fund. That's fund 27. That fund by law must zero out. So the general fund must zero out the fund 27. So whatever deficit is in fund 27, fund 10 has to cover that. Fund 21 is basically all your activity funds. Um any donations you re scholarship funds that you receive that carry over to different years. Funds 38 and 39 are your debt service funds. Basically all your debt payments have
015to come out of here. Fund 49 is the capital projects funds. Any [clears throat] money that's donated or borrowed for a capital project must go in fund 49. Fund 50 is a food service fund and fund 80 which we discussed is community service fund. So now I'll go right down the list here. Um so the top shows our fund balance. Um at then at 2425 our ending fund balance was 16.6 million. Our estimated budget for this year is showing a loss of 1.2 million. So >> our 174 >> it ended the year at 16.3. >> Got it. >> Yep. Yep. >> It started at 17.4. >> Got it. So we ran a deficit of 850,000 for 2425. We're projecting 1.2 million deficit for 2526. So our ending fund balance would be about 15.4 million. [laughter]
016Um [clears throat] so as you go down the line there you can see 210 taxes. As we just as uh Kevin said in our his preliminary numbers, our state basically the revenue limit calculation says you can have this much revenue based on enrollment for uh fund 10 revenue. The state says okay it's let's say 20 million for revenue. We're going to give you 8 million state aid taxes are 12 million. It's pretty simple calculation. So since our um equalized aid went down that 1.4 uh 4 million. That's why the tax, as you can see, went from 12.75 million to 14.5 million. So, our tax le 1.8 million this year for the general fund because of the equalizade aid decrease. And I mind if I interject here and have you comment as well, that does not
017mean our revenue limit is going up that much. Uh our revenue limit is going up about 500,000. >> Yeah, about $500,000. So, uh, this has to do with, uh, you know, more, uh, less state aid and then therefore more collected in local property taxes. So, exactly our our revenue increase for from the revenue limit revenue limit calculation is 500,000, but our state aid is going down 1 um 4 million, which generates a 1.8 million increase in our tax levy. It's pretty simple math. So, >> um, Victor, yeah, the the revenue limit, we have that $325 per student increase, which would be about $700,000 for the district. >> So, why is there a discrepancy between that and the revenue limit? Do you know, or is it >> because of the great revenue limit calculation that we
018[laughter] have? Basic there's a donut hole in the middle and as you as your Roman goes up and down you don't get the full revenue limit increase because of the I'll call it the donut hole in the middle because you got declining enrollment exceptions as you go down and then if you go start going back up it you don't really get all the revenue increase. So that's the difference. Okay, that's it is goofy, but it's we wish it was we wish it was as simple for everyone as just saying it's x number of dollars per uh per student on that three-year rolling average, but it's it's not. Um, >> and you you've mentioned that that several times. So, >> yes, >> it seems like you lose on the way down and you lose on the
019way up. It never seems to like >> you lose on the way down, but they soften the the blow on the way down is what they try to do. They try to instead of let's say you should go down a million, you'll go down 500,000 on your they soften the blow on the way down. When you start coming back up, you don't you don't go up. There's no I want to say it. You don't go up that fast. I mean, it's Yeah, it's >> It seems unfair on the way down and unfair on the way back to me. Yeah. >> But I It's [laughter] bad either way. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's a good the donnut hole. We get lost. >> You're walking uphill both ways, guys. [laughter] >> All right. All right. I'm
020done complaining. >> Yeah. >> Well, that's how school should be. Walk uphill both ways. [laughter] >> Exactly. [clears throat] >> But even once I can say during a finance committee meeting, uh Victor had the budget sheet pulled up and we just played around a little bit. What if our enrollment was this or what if our enrollment was this? And I think even for this year, I think we put in something like 50 or 100 students more than what we actually were and it didn't change things a bit. So, >> exactly. >> Um, that's the the donut hole in the middle. >> That's the frustrating part to me. We work so hard to get our enrollment up. It really doesn't >> we're not rewarded. >> Yeah. >> State [clears throat] law [sighs] get elected, you can
021change it. So, [laughter] >> thanks. I'll I'll put my name in. Yeah, sounds [laughter] good. >> Better ask Mary first. >> Um, I don't know. >> I guess 280. I'll point out interest income. I got it projected going down because of interest rates, but I think uh I should have wrote it down. I think in 2022 our interest income was only 75,000. So, if the rates go back to where they were, like 2022, that would be uh hurt to our budget. [cough] Just pointing [clears throat] that out. Um, let's see. 340 is open enrollment in. So, you can see we're up 100,000 for that for this year. That was as of last week. That changes about every other day. So, but as of two weeks ago or so, we're up 100,000. um 620 state aid.
022That's the number we're talking about for equalization aid. It's down to 1,465,000. Um I guess I'll point out 690. That's where we get our per student aid. You get I forget $742 per FD I believe is where the number's at. That's the 1.9 million. 7:30 is down quite a bit. That is our uh federal aid basically is down a lot because we had that the ESSER funding, but the Boys and Girls Club, the grant went through us, so we don't have that this year. That's why we're down in the federal and title one, you can see, is down quite a bit. Um we are in a hold harmless, excuse me, a hold harmless. >> That's the 750, right? >> For what? Sorry, >> title one. the 750. >> Yeah, 750. Sorry. Yes. Sure. >> We're
023in a hold armless and we lost our hold arm list. So now we got cut to where they want us to be. So we're down to 332 and I forget the number, but they're looking at cutting title one again next year just nationwide. So we could be taking another cut there next year. >> And that's that's based on your poverty level or level. >> Poverty level. And then uh something else I forget. Marcino remember what it is. >> It's some Yeah. Some kind of enrollment or something. Yes. But there's three tiers. And if you if you drop from three to two, that's a big drop from two three to two on the tier level. That's why we got we lost our whole arms. >> Low achieving children and high poverty schools. >> Okay. I guess
024any questions on that page. All righty. [laughter] 780 is basically uh it's we get Medicaid for special ed services and then the administrative part we get like three years later that's what 780 is. It's Medicaid that we get to put it in fund 10. [gasps] um 860. Those prior years were the hail hail insurance um money that we got from the whatever year that was. What was it? Three years ago already the hail >> two. >> Okay. >> So basically when you get hail damage money that's where it has to go. Obviously we don't have any more money coming in so that's why it's now zero. um refunded dispersements down quite a bit. We got some extra on plan revenues last year um related to new market tax credit closing from the pool. So that's
025why that's down quite a bit. Um [clears throat] so that's that it for revenues. Any question on revenues or Okay. So on the expenses um so 110,000 is basically your elementary education because it's as it says it's undifferiated. It's not like English, science, math. It's all together. So 110,000 is essentially your elementary um education. 120,000 basically your 120 to 170 would be middle school, high school because you like 120 would be uh social studies, science, 130 is going to be your tech ed, business ed, all those 140 would be your fied classes. 160 is your I'll say forensics and those type of activities and then your um athletics will be in 160. The 170 is uh our GT stuff, gifted and talented. Um so as you look down those numbers there, really there's not much
026big not uh big changes from the prior year. Um so then we get into support services. [clears throat] So 210,000 would be your guidance and all that. Um as it says would say pupil services. 220,000 is where we have our curriculum budget, um our library. Uh 230,000 would be the board and and basically Ry's budget. 240,000 would be the principal budgets. 250,000 is a very big category. So that'd be the business office, it'd be transportation, it'd be custodial, it'd be maintenance, and yeah, that'd be it in there. So that's why the number's so big. I don't know why they combine them all, but >> didn't ask my opinion, >> but it's down. >> Yes. Yep. I was going to go back to be quiet. >> And 260 is just kind of a catch all. It's
027phone, internet, um, and that kind of stuff. Okay. And then 290 290,000 is basically our IT cost. and then um some retirement cost. So, as you go through the support services, like I said before, there's not many big changes except 250,000. So, as I said, that's where we have operations and maintenance budget, and we had our turf replacement in there last year. The conservancy finishing the conservancy construction was in there last year. That's [clears throat] why it's down so much from the prior year. Um, guess that's all I had on support services. I don't know if anybody's got any questions on those or all right to get down to 430 sorry 410,000 that is the transfer that I was talking about before that [clears throat] that's how much fund 10 has to transfer to fund
02827 to zero it out for the year so this year it's about $3.3 million that's why a lot of schools are trying to get the state categorical state categor increased because it would reduce that transfer from uh fund 10 430,000 would be our um open enrollment out and our uh the secondary the kids that take classes at the college forget what you call it and start college >> so that includes the secondary options and the open roman Then fund 21. I don't budget anything because it's all activity funds and I'm trying to guess what they're going to spend for the year is basically impossible. So, um, [clears throat] any questions with any of that stuff or ready? >> Colleges should have to pay us when they have to teach students high school courses. >> Yeah,
029[laughter] that'd be fair. [snorts] >> Yep. So should be in fund 27 now already. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Okay. [clears throat] So fund 27 as I said the this is the revenue side of it. The 3.3 million $3.3 million coming in on fund 27. Transitive aids is uh categorical aid that we received from CISA because we contract for them for some of our special eds services. 610. That is where the state increase the categorical aid up. They think it's going to be I think they budget 43%. I budget at 40% because it's never the percent that they think it's going to be because they just give they just give a pot of money. They say $10 million and as people's costs go up, that percent goes down. So it's it's never the percent that they
030project. But it is, as you can see, it's still a sizable increase for us. Um, let's see. 7:30 is federal. That's down because we bought two uh special advance out of last year's uh flow through budget. [snorts] I guess that's all I had to say on revenues. If you had any questions. All righty. So we should be on expenses now, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So basically 150,000 is the uh all your special ed curriculum cost. You can see it is up quite a bit from last year. We had um we're now giving everybody in lie of health. So that increased their cost. In fund 27, we had the staff pay raises and our health insurance is up quite a bit in 27. We must have had some more staff uh elect to take health
031insurance this year. Next, yeah, this year, sorry. [gasps] Um guidance and or sorry, people services and instructional staff between their two, they're pretty much the same. We had DPI change some how we had to code some expenses this year. So that's why it went between the two like that. business administration. That's where we bought the two bands out of last year. So that's why that went down for fun 27. And then 430,000 is down quite a bit. DPI change the coding on that for this year too. When we buy services from CISA, they used to go to 430. Now they go into the actual function that they're supposed to be in like hearings in 155 and whatever whatever. So basically those costs are now in the 150s instead of the 430s. That's why it's such
032a big change there. Any questions on 27? All righty. [clears throat] So now to debt service. Um so basically this year we're we got we have some fund balance and fund 39 the referendum debt we need to start uh uh reducing that. So as you can see our revenues are less than our expenses so we can start uh decreasing that fund balance in fund 39. Um fund 149 we had we got a big hail insurance payment in May of last in May of 25 that we had to spend in this year to finish the work. So that's why that that's the money in fund 49. It was hail damage payments that we carried forward to 2526 [snorts] food service that's pretty self-explanatory. We are projecting should wrote it down. Sorry. About a $80 90,000 loss
033in there. We haven't raised our rates for 10 years. Does that sound right? >> Pretty close. >> Yeah. So, it's [clears throat] starting to hit us. The food costs are up so much. It's starting to affect us, but we have fund balance in there that DPI wants us to spend down. So, we had uh basically got to burn some of that fund balance. And then we get to 180. Um last year the number the 2425 revenue expenses are so high because we had to when you have a a lease you have to book re I'll call it fake revenue expense the year that you booked the lease. So basically we had to book a forget the number sorry six or 7 million revenue and expense. Um it's the the zero out but you just got
034to book it for your books. So that's why last year was so high. This year we got to complete the construction of the community center. So that's why the um 25 26 numbers are quite a bit higher than back two years ago too. So um take any questions that you have on that. All righty. Now it should be addendum B which is a CISA. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> So before when I go Kevin said yeah we ranked ninth in the mill rate this is where that comes from. CISA put together this mill rate worksheet of all the schools in CIS 11. And basically that's where it shows that we ranked ninth out of CIS 11 schools. [clears throat] >> Why are we the highest in the one column community service? The highest of all
035the schools. >> Yes. >> 580. Pool community center >> projects and leases. >> Mhm. Yes. >> Yep. >> Quite a bit. >> I don't have any other questions on that or and those mill rates too. That was last year's. But >> yes, this is last year's right everyone's will go down the same path as us. But yeah, >> we can't have this year's obviously because everybody's doing their meetings like us right now. So we can't they can't have this year's data. So all righty, next one will be the the tax levy spreadsheet that Phil was asking about before. this one. >> Yeah. [clears throat] So the top part shows a change in equalized valuation by each taxing district. >> So in total we're up about 11 point we're up 11.75%. >> So you're talking from
0362.5 billion to 2.8 billion. >> Yes. Right in the middle there. Right down here. >> There we go. So schoolwide, we're up 11.75%. But obviously everybody's going to be higher than lower than that. So if you're lower than that, your share of the district taxes go down. If you're higher than that, your share of the district taxes go up. So the top part basically shows the change in equalized valuation. The bottom part is where you get to the dollars of taxes. So is that what you >> So if you can go to the bottom, keep going. Yeah. So this here shows the changes in actual dollar tax levy to that taxing district. [gasps] So basically it follows the top. If your um [clears throat] changing you guys valuation was more than the districtwide average, your
037percent change in levy is going to be higher than everybody else's. So our percent change in levy is 9%. If your equalized valuation went up more than the average, you're you're going to be more than 9%. You're going to be less than 9% if you were less. So you can see there the changes in the in the actual tax levy. So like we're saying before the tax lev is going up 1.8 million. Our revenue increase is only 500,000. The reason why the difference is the equalization aid went down to 1.4 million. Um [clears throat] so yes there is going to be some sizable taxes tax increases this year to some taxing districts. It's it's strictly from the fund 10 levy from basically they didn't increase the equalization aid this year. Milwaukee ate up a bigger
038percent of the pie because they passed a referendum and a large >> we're left holding the bag. So [laughter] a huge referendum. >> I guess I'll take any questions you have on that if you have any. Any questions? >> So, what type of referendum affects the um equalization aid? I mean, a building referendum wouldn't >> operational referendum >> operational, >> right? [clears throat] And that Milwaukeekey's was it 300 million and some million? >> I was going to say 252 for some reason sticks in my head. $252 million referendum, something like that. >> Well, they were going to go broke, weren't they, if they didn't pass the referendum. >> So, basically, they didn't change the equaliz valuation aid pot. They just left it at whatever 500 billion, whatever the number is. You know what I mean?
039So, they didn't increase it. So, everybody else just got reduced basically. >> Any other questions or comments? >> [clears throat] >> All right. If [laughter] we have no other discussion, that's >> all I have. >> Anything else from either Mr. Dross? >> We don't we'll take action on the pieces and uh during the regular meeting. >> Yeah, we'll take action during the regular meeting. So now I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. >> Motion has been made. Is there a second? >> Second. We are adjourned from our budget hearing. Thank you. All right. Be ready to go in 25 minutes.