By Ben Rodgers
Editor
DE PERE – With months to go before being finalized, the De Pere school district is projecting an 82-cent decrease in the mill rate as part of its preliminary budget.
Dawn Foeller, district business manager, informed the school board on the preliminary budget at its Monday, June 17, meeting.
Foeller attributed the decrease in the mill rate to a decline in referendum debt service payments year-over-year from building project referendums that were passed in 2012 and 2016.
The mill rate is projected to drop to $8.73 per $1,000 of equalized home value for the 2019-20 school year.
For the 2015-16 school year, the mill rate was $10.82. It has dropped every year since.
At the same time, the debt service fund levy has decreased from a high of $6,345,860 in 2018-19 to a proposed $3,935,519 for next school year.
Foeller made the following assumptions in her preliminary budget presentation:
• Enrollment will increase by 26 students.
• Staffing will increase by just over two full-time positions.
• Equalized value will increase by 2 percent.
• There will be a $175 per-pupil increase in the revenue cap amount for resident students.
• Per-pupil categorical aid will increase by $25, bringing the total to $679 for 2019-20.
• Wages will increase 2.44 percent.
• Health insurance will increase by 3.8 percent, with no increase for dental.
• There will be no increase for the Wisconsin Retirement System.
• The reimbursement rate for special education will be 26 percent.
“Right now we are showing expenditures exceeding revenues, but as I said, there are a lot of moving parts and it will continue to evolve all the way until we set the levy in October,” Foeller said.
The request to approve the preliminary budget for the upcoming school year was so the district could pay employees this summer, she said.
There will also be another preliminary budget presented in August when more information is solidified.
Foeller also requested the board formally approve the district’s 10-year capital project plan.
“I also asked for a motion to approve this,” Foeller said. “It’s something DPI put in place. I want to make sure I’m following the letter of the law to access Fund 46 dollars. You need to approve this, but it will most likely evolve.”
Fund 46 in school district budgets across Wisconsin is used to pay for capital projects.
Both the preliminary budget and the capital improvement plan passed.
In other news, the board was informed of a plan by Dickinson Elementary School Principal Luke Herlache to drum up interest in parent participation for academic meetings.
“We need to reconsider how we engage families in this form of communication, because we do very much value it and find it rewarding in what we do,” Herlache said.
His plan calls for each elementary school to create its own passport-style event where parents and students go to different stations to learn things about the curriculum and get entered to win a prize.
This would be held in mid November and replace an academic meeting typically held in late January.
“We’re really hoping that we are going to increase our family engagement with these changes and we hope the efforts put in by staff to develop the activities are more fruitful,” Herlache said.