By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – The Ashwaubenon School District’s tax levy for 2019-20 is going down by $209,078 from the previous year.
A levy of $16.25 million was approved Wednesday, Oct. 30, by the Ashwaubenon school board.
Business Director Keith Lucius provided the board with an overview of the district’s budget, which calls for general fund expenditures and revenues for 2019-20 of around $33.95 million, an increase of approximately $700,000.
Lucius said the general fund portion of the tax levy, $15 million, is down more than $300,000 because of the district’s student counts and equalization aid.
He said Ashwaubenon’s equalization aid from the state is going up by more than $450,000 to around $6.8 million, while the amount the district receives in open enrollment revenue is going down and projected to be around $9 million for 2019-20.
Lucius said the impact on the budget from private school vouchers is $171,550, the amount the district loses in aid.
“We have people who live in the Village of Ashwaubenon, who don’t live in the school district, but think they live in the school district,” he said. “So we can’t even verify these are all our students (enrolled in the private school voucher program), but we have to pay for them, and taxpayers have to pay for them.”
Lucius said the district’s debt service fund is increasing by $51,146 to $615,562 to include paying off the State Trust Fund loan used for the remediating of contamination on school property.
“That will save the taxpayers over $44,000 worth of interest over the next couple of years… It makes sense,” he said. “We’re able to do that with our levy still going down from where it was last year.”
Lucius said the levy for the community service fund, which is able to be used for programs that are not for elementary and secondary education but have the primary function of serving the community, is increasing by $156,000 to $632,000.
He said increases in the community service fund levy have been included for utilities and the cleaning contract for the pool and Performing Arts Center spaces, as well as for additional staff hired and operating supplies at the PAC.
“It was difficult to determine the utilities and cleaning cost of the new pool and PAC,” Lucius said. “These costs have exceeded our estimates mainly because of the high usage the facilities have.”
Tax rate down
Lucius said the district’s mill rate is decreasing by 56 cents to $7.81 per $1,000 of equalized property value, the lowest it has been in the last 25 years.
“The mill rate’s going down because, one, the levy’s down $200,000, but the bigger factor is property values are up,” he said. “That will reduce our levy in the short run, but the way the state funding formula works, it’s going to reduce our equalization aid next year (with the district being) more property rich.”
Lucius said the overall equalized property value in the Ashwaubenon School District increased for 2019 by 5.77 percent to more than $2 billion.