MONROE — A capacity crowd was on hand as the School District of Monroe electorate approved the 2023-24 tax levy and other items at the annual meeting Oct. 16 at the Bauer Education Center. The tax levy approved was $14,992,000. 

The meeting took place just three days after the state’s Department of Public Instruction released its general school aid figures. Monroe will receive an extra $306,339, or about a 1.77% increase from 2022-23.

“The state had been projecting in July our state aids to be about $18.1 million. I was anticipating it being less than that, and so I told the board at one time I thought it would be close to $17.8 (million), so I budgeted it at $17.9 million,” said Ron Olson, Monroe school’s Business Administrator. “Unfortunately, the numbers that just came out have it at $17,634,000. So that will mean we’ll have to apply less dollars to the state aid, which means there’s more dollars that ends up going on the levy. We’ll finalize those numbers next week.”

Expenditures are expected to be about a 1.66% increase, a little over a half a million dollars, Olson said. There was no increase to the revenue limit or the per-pupil aid. The levy increased 0.96%, though when accounting for the state aid factors, the levy would be closer to 4%.

“I will say this, though: The state knew this was coming, so what they did at the state level was put additional dollars into the Tax Levy Credit,” Olson said, adding that the state Tax Levy Credit saw an increase of about 27%. “We don’t get that at the school level, so I can’t say what those amounts will be for each of your bills, but for what we are seeing across the state is our levies are increasing because of how the school funding formula worked this year.”

The anticipation from the state when they passed this budget in July, Olson said, was that the Tax Levy Credit would actually offset a bunch of that. 

“It will vary from municipality to municipality, and from individual to individual. So, we’ll see what that is later,” he said.

Comparing the 2023-24 budget to 2022-23, Monroe’s revenues are projected to be less than 1% of a decrease from last year, Olson told the crowd. 

“We’re seeing a large valuation increase yet again this year, so that means the mill rate is decreasing 77-cents or 8.22%,” he said. “The state did allow a $325 increase to the revenue limit. It’s not what the CPI increases are going at, but it’s a better increase than we’ve seen in some years. I’m glad it’s at $325 and not $0, or else we would be in a really bad place.”

The electorate determines the levy, and the school board determines the budget based off of that levy, which is what the district’s legal counsel William Fahey said. Some districts hold their annual meeting earlier in the year, before state aid is granted. State statute allows those school boards to adjust the levy and the budget as needed. 

“There’s a provision in the statute that allows the board to go back and correct the amount that they think is necessary for the operation and maintenance of the schools,” Fahey said.

The district electors present authorized the tax levy with relative ease. They also authorized the Board of Education to:

●  Furnish textbooks

●  Operate the hot lunch and milk programs

●  Provide for the sale of real and personal property not needed for school purposed in accordance with school board policy

●  Lease school property

●  Purchase, operate, and maintain transportation vehicles or to finance contracts for the use and services of transportation vehicles

●  Direct and provide for the prosecution or defense of any action or proceedings in which the school district is interested

●  Expense reimbursement for the Board of Education members

●  Establish the date and time for the 2024 Annual Meeting

The electors also authorized the annual salaries for the Board of Education members — which is $0 per member. Monroe is one of a handful of districts across the state where the school board operates on a completely volunteer basis.

MADISON — The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Oct. 13 posted state general school aids that school districts will receive during the current school year. The information published includes certified general school aid amounts for each school district, as well as 2023-24 student enrollment numbers for independent charter schools and private schools participating in state parental choice programs. The enrollment numbers are used to determine the dollar amounts to be deducted or withheld from school districts’ aid payments to fund state parental choice programs.

General school aids are the largest form of state support for PK-12 schools in Wisconsin and are based on prior year data. Private school choice and independent charter school programs are funded based on current year data. The DPI is required by state law to release the certified aid figures by Oct. 15 of each year. The general school aid amounts for school districts are calculated using student counts and year-end financial data from the previous school year (2022-23). This data replaces preliminary aid estimates released in July.

Aid amounts for each school district can be found on the department’s School Financial Services webpage, both alphabetically and by percent change, at https://dpi.wi.gov/sfs/aid/general/summary. General school aids are paid in four installments during the school year.