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West De Pere school board approves $20.8 million tax levy

By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer

DE PERE – Property owners in the School District of West De Pere will see their mill rate for school district purposes go up by a penny per $1,000.

Following the district’s annual meeting Tuesday, Oct. 15, when about a dozen people were on hand in the high school auditorium, the West De Pere school board unanimously certified the district’s tax levy of $20.8 million for the 2019-20 school year.

The tax levy, which is increasing by 5.69 percent from the previous year, includes around $15.2 million for the district’s general fund, $5.5 million to pay off referendum debt and $173,032 for non-referendum debt service.

Business Manager Brian Walters said the district expected the mill rate to increase by 35 cents to $9.99 per $1,000 following last November’s passage of the district’s two referendum questions.

However, because of the district’s equalized value increasing by nearly $115 million to more than $2.164 billion, Walters said the mill rate will be $9.65 per $1,000.

“That’s good news for the school district,” he said.

Upon the board certifying the levy, the district’s 2019-20 budget will be $42.2 million.

In addition to more than $15.4 million in local funding that is primarily property taxes, the budget also includes almost $26 million in state funding, $518,571 from federal sources, $222,500 in inter-district payments and other funding sources totaling less than $55,000.

On the expenditure side, about $21.5 million is designated for instruction, support services account for about $14.8 million and about $5.78 million is designated as non-program transactions.

Walters noted salaries and benefits account for around 63 percent of the district’s general fund expenditures.

Because of the borrowing for the referendum projects, Walters said the district’s gross total expenditures are increasing for 2019-20 by almost $26 million to more than $78.7 million.

“We’re now constructing things with our referendum,” he said. “We’re now moving into the capital projects phase.”

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