Sauk Prairie school district adopts $19 million tax levy

On Monday, September 9, 2019, the Sauk Prairie School District held their Budget Hearing as well as their Annual Meeting followed by the regular Board Meeting. This was the first board meeting for new superintendent, Jeff Wright. The Budget Hearing, which is required under Wis. Stat. 65.90 to be held at the same time and place as the Annual Meeting, was presented by executive director of business services, Kathy Stoltz. Stoltz provided a summary of the 2019-20 budget and proposed levy. She did stress that, “the numbers that will be presented tonight will change by the time we get to the meeting in October when we finalize the budget.” The numbers for the board meeting on September 9, 2019 were pulled three weeks prior. Some of the reasons for the numbers to change include the third Friday count which will happen on September 20, 2019, the aid from the state which won’t be received until October 15, 2019, and Stoltz needs time to fine tune the budgets. The 2018-19 numbers are still unaudited but the school district started off the previous school year with a beginning fund balance of $8.7 million and ended the year with a fund balance of $8.8 million, which means the 2019-20 school year starts off with a beginning fund balance of $8.8 million. Once other revenues and financing sources are included the total revenue was $30.5 million for 2018-19 school year and is projected to be $31.6 million for the 2019-20 school year. “When we look at the beginning and ending fund balance in 2018-19, from what I’ve looked at for the budget you adopted last year, you were predicting a shortfall of about $35,000,” said Stoltz. “But as you can see by the numbers on the screen, Sauk Prairie School District was very fiscal and those numbers show a $93,000 increase in fund balance.” This means the district took in more revenue than what was expended. When Stoltz looked at the figures about one week before the meeting with adjustments that had been made since the numbers were pulled, the school district was even more fiscally responsible. It came out to about $380,000 added to the fund balance which brings the fund balance to just over $9.1 million dollars. The final numbers will most likely change. When it comes to revenue for the district, 48% of the revenues are local, including property taxes, admission fees, student fees and rentals. The interdistrict pay revenues come in at 3.62%, that’s the open enrollment revenue. 19.7 percent of the revenue is spent on elementary costs, 18.5 percent on middle school/high school curriculum , 17.6 percent on non-program costs, and 16 percent on business administration. The school district tax levy is made up of several components including the amount of operational dollars needed and the amount of debt service tax dollars needed. The equalized value of property in the school district determines how much the district can tax. When it comes to the mill rate for taxpayers in 2018-19, the rate was $9.51 per $100,000 of equalized value, and this year the district is looking at a mill rate of $9.50. This has stayed pretty consistent over the last five years with the highest mill rate in 2014-15 school year when it was $10.49. As for the tax levies, which are broken up by sixteen municipalities, $14.2 million goes into the general fund operating levy while $260,000 goes into the capital expansion fund levy for a total of $14.5 million. The Village of Sauk City contributes 16.4 percent of tax contributions, with 19.8 percent coming from Prairie du Sac, 12.8 percent from the town of Merrimac, the town of West Point bringing in 11.7 percent, and the town of Prairie du Sac with 8.1 percent.. Stoltz also gave the board an update on the summary of the outstanding debt which includes two referendum obligation bonds, one that was taken out in 2014 for twenty years and one that was taken out in 2015 for fifteen years. As of June 30, 2019, the total balance of the two bonds was just under $29 million. The last item Stoltz addressed before the Annual Meeting began was the community services program and the River Arts Center. The community service program includes programming in pool activities, community education and recreation, facility rental, after school care programs and other miscellaneous programs who serve the needs of the Sauk Prairie community. The Community Services Program had a revenue in 2018-19 of $878,000 and an expenditure of $795,000 giving them an ending surplus balance of $83,000. With the beginning fund balance of $158,000 added to this number the ending fund balance for the 2018-19 year was $242, 000. For the 2019-20 school year, the projected budget is $919,000 with expenditures around $1 million, leaving them with a deficit of $81,000. Once the beginning fund balance of $242,000 is added to the deficit the ending fund balance will be $161,000. For the River Arts Center, in 2018-19 it took in revenues of $192,000 with $127,000 coming from the tax levy and $64,000 in other local revenues. The program incurred expenses of $213,000 and the $21,000 deficit contributed to a fund balance of $900. For the 2019-20 year, the budget is estimated to bring in $192,000 with $169,000 in expenditures, adding the surplus of $23,000 to the beginning fund balance of $900. Food service added $7,000 to the fund balance, which is expected to be used to replace some aging equipment. The district is projecting a balanced budget for the 2019-20 school year. Next up was the Annual Meeting. During this meeting, anyone attending the board meeting is part of the board. Wright started by summarizing some of the key projects that were completed by the district in the previous year which included, safety investments to the buildings in the district, approving new compensation and health insurance plans for employees, spending the year in a district wide study in adverse childhood events, trauma and the role that educators can play to support students, solidifying the trimester schedule and working on closing achievement gaps and overall curricular alinement across schools. Looking at the year ahead, Wright said, “Some of the strategic goals that I have put forth to our team and continue to work on with you as a school board are collaboratively drafting school improvement plans for every school that will help inform the districts overall strategic plan, turn our shared attention to expected gains and added value metrics as a way to plan and determine individual student growth, increase our alignment of our social and emotional and behavior instructions across all of the buildings to make sure we are all speaking the same language, review district systems and operations to make sure they are supporting our students and their families and I want to make sure we are fully engaging our community for facility improvements [to the district] which will begin with an upcoming survey.” A tax levy of over $19 million was adopted. Board members’ salary was also voted on with Sauk City resident, Mark Fry requesting a $4 raise for board members bringing them up to $78 per meeting, citing the reason behind it as they put in a lot of time and work away from family. “No one on the board is looking for a raise and when I asked each board member they thought it was a bad idea as that is not why they are here, to make money,” said Fry. “But the time spent in committee meetings, on the phone with constituents, regular and special meetings is work and often times does not reflect all of the work that board members put in throughout the year.” All of the board members abstained from the vote. During the regular meeting which was the final meeting on the schedule for the evening, Wright touched on the new school logo which is going back to a retro look and the newly updated website and social media pages. “We are trying to unify more of the district messages through one Facebook page because we know sometimes families have students in multiple schools,” said Wright. Check out the new website at saukprairieschools.org. The next school district meeting will take place at Tower Rock on September 23, 2019.