Sauk Prairie School District prepays more referendum debt

The Sauk Prairie School District Board approved more savings for taxpayers at their March 11th meeting. The board has consistently made early payments on its referendum debt over the past few years, saving money that would otherwise be spent on interest payments.  At the meeting, the school board approved the pre-payment of existing debt. The debt is from the construction authorized in 2014 that included the building of Bridges Elementary, the expansion of Tower Rock, and remodeling projects at several other district properties. This pre-payment saves district taxpayers money by reducing interest owed. The district’s total prep-payments have saved over $2.7 million in interest. Total debt pre-payments exceed $8.8 million. The 2014 referendum debt was originally scheduled to be paid off in 2035. The District now anticipates payment will be complete in early 2028. In 2018-19, debt pre-payment savings totaled $275,000; 2019-20 savings totaled $750,000, in 2020-21 there were no savings; in 2021-22 pre-payment savings totaled $465,000; in 2022-23 the total savings were $595,000; and in 2023-24 det pre-payment savings were $210,000. Add these up and Sauk Prairie School District has paid back—early--$8.8 million in referendum debt and saved $2.7 million in interest. At their February 26 meeting, Superintendent Jeff Wright summarized an otherwise simple board action wrapped in daunting language:   “Short version: The state requires districts to participate in trainings to safely follow the guidelines for secluding or restraining a student to keep the student, other students, and staff safe.   Relationship-Based Intervention is one of the trainings developed to meet this goal.  The developers of this training, RBI, have presented in Sauk Prairie several times.  The team recently decided it had an interest in retiring and to transfer all intellectual property to an individual school district.  Sauk Prairie is that school district.  This agreement allows the District to take complete ownership of the intellectual property as a donation at no cost.  This will enable us to train our own staff and staff from other districts in an incredibly cost-effective way.”