MONROE — The School District of Monroe Board of Education met Sept. 25 at the Bauer Education Center and discussed several items, from an academic plan to target learning growth to the 2023-24 operating budget being brought to the annual meeting next month.
“This (budget) then goes to the annual meeting of the electorate, and then the board sets the final numbers at the end of October when we know all the final numbers from the state,” said Business Administrator Ron Olson.
The annual meeting will be held at 5 p.m. on Oct. 16 at the Bauer Education Center.
Perhaps the longest portion of the 1 hour, 46-minute meeting centered around the approval of the 2023-24 operating budget.
“I just wanted to set a backdrop that the per-pupil aid increases that the (Wisconsin) legislature has brought to us are also on the back end of two back-to-back year zero-dollar increases,” Board of Education President Rich Deprez said. “What is being proposed and is available for us to levy is not going to keep up with inflation, certainly, which is exacerbating a continued decline in school funding. We’re not even close to keeping up with inflation over the last 15-20 years — many thousands of dollars per-pupil behind.”
Olson went more in-depth on the revenue limits, levies and what to expect moving forward. Revenues are down 0.09% compared to last year. Expenditures are up 1.66%.
“Given the cost of inflation, that’s a pretty good place where we are,” Olson said.
A few items are out of the operating budget that had been there in year’s past, like federal dollars. That leaves the budget in a $1.5 million deficit compared to last year.
“When we saw no increase in revenue limit, we were told we had federal one-time dollars to fill our budget hole. Those dollars go away,” Olson said.
While the Wisconsin budget gave back a large amount of money to schools around the state — about $325 per pupil — it doesn’t cover the per pupil losses from the previous couple of years, let alone the federal funds.
“When you add in some of the declining enrollment factors that rural schools across the state are encountering, it’s a road backwards for most districts, which includes Monroe. We’re losing ground instead of making ground,” Olson said.
That means cuts and savings will have to be made throughout the school year in order to slow the deficit, something Olson is confident will happen. However, it likely won’t amount to the full $1.5 million.
“Last year we were budgeted for about a $900,000 deficit, and by the end of the year it was about $200,000,” Olson said. “We typically aim for that to be less than a million, but we know that over the course of the year we bring our expenditures 2-3% under, and we sometimes bring our revenues in a percent over. We usually feel that at a million a year, we’re going to come in at close to balance. At a million and a half, it’s a little higher than we would like. A lot of that is a product of that we didn’t get the backfill of the previous two years of revenue limit increases that didn’t happen.”
Olson said the district will continue looking for further ways to help with the budget — which include the curriculum, programs and staffing.
“We’ve made headway in the last few years, however, as we’ve been trying to address some of the deficiencies in the report card, we’ve added back — some ELL staffings, interventionists and such. That’s offset some of the other reductions we’ve made,” Olson said. “We’ll have to find, certainly, some other reductions to bring the budget down next year.”
What the district can’t afford to do is sit on their hands. If they can’t figure it out how to tighten up — especially if inflation continues to rise and government aid freezes again — the district might have to ask voters to pass an operating referendum, similar to what was passed in 2016.
“We have $1.5 million of a non-recurring referendum out there. There are districts who are a quarter of our size in Dane County who are getting $3 million per year non-recurring. Not only are we a low-revenue district in the sense of the revenue limit formula, the amount that we’re asking on an operating referendum basis compared to many other school districts is also less. We’re not alone, but it is a factor that is real,” Olson said.
Part of the factor is a steady decline in enrollment, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the final two “bigger classes” graduate from Monroe High School over the next few years, Olson said the district appears likely to settle into a balanced number at each grade level.
“In the time I’ve been here, 18 years, when I first got here our high school was at about 210 (per class) and our elementary schools were at 180. About 7-8 years ago, our high school became about 180, and our elementary schools about 140-150. And now we are about to be 140-150 K-12. That seems to be the number we have settled in at,” Olson said.
Board member Mike Froseth, Jr. was straight to the point with his analysis.
“Really we’ve got the next two years to hope and pray that the state increases their state aid, or we figure out a way to come closer to a balanced budget — which means some tough choices coming forward for the board and the district,” Froseth said.
“Having done this for 30 years, I have yet to see the white knight of school funding show up. I’m not holding my breath for two years from now,” Olson responded. “The plus is, our state is sitting on the biggest surplus they’ve ever sat on, but they were sitting on the biggest surplus they’ve ever sat on prior to the last biennium, and we saw zero under the guise of ‘We don’t know what’s going to the economy, so we better be cautious.’ We came out of that biennium with an even bigger pile of money that they have at the state level. We saw a little bit of additional money go into the formula, but not enough to address the needs.
“To be fair to the state, Medicare costs and other costs are going up as well, so there are a lot of tough decisions that have to be made. But I don’t see school funding magically getting a lot better, because it hasn’t before.”
Deprez and Olson reminded the audience that the current projected numbers for the levy, mill rate and equalization are not yet finalized, and won’t be until state numbers come through in October.
“This year, we have the second highest estimated change of equalized value in the last 30 years, on the heels of the highest valuation change. The only way to figured out — if you’re interested as a taxpayer — what that school district line item is going to be is to sit down with their municipal clerk and determine how our levy will impact that individual,” Deprez said.
“They are projecting an 11% increase for our school district’s equalized value. What that means is that our levy rate, our mill rate, will actually go down 8.22% to $8.56,” Olson said. “This will all be adjusted at the end of October to what the actual numbers are. But, for most people, what I really want to focus on is our levy. If everything else is equal with yours and your neighbor’s evaluation and you all move kind of at the same amount, plan on the increase being about 1%.”
Other updates
The board also approved two Library Trustee Appointment nominations: Stacy Cavanaugh and Dr. Tracy Pierner, Blackhawk Technical College President and member of the Green County Development Corp. board.
“Stacy is very well respected in our community, and would be an advocate and a voice for many different people on the board,” Deprez said.
District Superintendent Rodney Figueroa gave an update on the new school project. The wetland delineation and mapping of the wetland has been completed. The traffic study was set to begin Sept. 26. Once the traffic study is done, it can be determined where the best placement for the entry off of County KK will be. The traffic study will take 10-12 weeks to complete and will involve all potential intersections.
“Once that’s done, we’ll be able to draw in that new road,” Figueroa said.
The new campus currently has beans planted, and once harvested, the full-scale soil study can commence.
Owner’s rep Huffman Keel’s contract with the district is complete and begins Oct. 1.
The board also approved the high school swimming co-op with New Glarus for an additional two years. The teams cover the cost of participation based on participation numbers. In the recent past, New Glarus has actually filled much of the roster, though Monroe’s participation numbers are trending upward again. Monroe is the host school, which selects the coaches. The team competes at the Green County Family YMCA. This year the team is unbeaten in head-to-head matches, including defeating 8-time defending champion Madison Edgewood on Tuesday Sept. 25. For more on that meet, see Sports, page A7.
Director of Curriculum Todd Paradis gave an academic update from across the district. Paradis and the school staffs have rearranged many of its interventionists based on trends of growth across various instructional topics. Giving students extra help in certain areas, like 6-12 math, should help boost ACT and assessment test scores, which are the de facto number to compare Monroe High School students to other districts across the state. Higher scores would likely lead to better report cards from the state’s Department of Public Instruction.
“I think we can maybe look at some of the other districts and their report cards and try and look at some of their numbers to try and give us a sense of what’s going to give us a fighting chance to give us the results we want,” said Joe Monroe, Director of Pupil Services. “I think that, in terms of resources, I think Todd’s right in that some of those ratios we’ve established. We feel really good about those. If we focus on that, we feel it gives kids a really good chance at making significant growth. We’re quite confident that with the work we’ve set up, that we’re going to be able to demonstrate on a student level, really good growth for kids. We believe in the aggregate, it’s going to make a difference.”
To watch the full meeting in order to get more details, go to https://tinyurl.com/yc7nbk2h or follow MonroeSchoolsWI on YouTube.
