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Voters in the East Troy Community School District approved the District's non-recurring operational referendum on the April 4 spring election ballot. The measure allows the District to exceed its state-set revenue limits by $3 million each of the next three years, beginning with the 2023-2024 school year. The additional funds will be used to help maintain programming and staffing, along with providing more predictability and stability.
While the District knows that not everyone voted in favor of the district's plan/question, the District is incredibly grateful for our community members taking the time to learn more about the East Troy Community School District and taking part in important conversations about the future of our schools and community.
"I cannot thank the residents enough for approving these additional funds toward supporting the children and investing in our future," commented Dr. Hibner, District Administrator of the East Troy Community School District.
Quick Summary
What:
The District is seeking an Operational Referendum: The most urgent need is to fund the day-to-day operations of the school district.
The East Troy Community School District Board of Education is requesting $3 million each of the next three years with an estimated school tax mill rate impact of $1.40 per year per $1,000 of property value.
Why:
The East Troy School District does not have enough predictable and stable funding to maintain quality educational opportunities for students, attract and retain quality staff in an ever competitive labor market, and simultaneously, adequately maintain its school facilities within the state-established revenue limits. Like many districts in Wisconsin, there is a gap in operational funds to run the district’s day-to-day operations as revenues have not kept pace with inflation.
This State-wide problem has resulted in the East Troy Community School District doing 10.2 million dollars in budget balancing efforts over the course of the last 16 years (as of the 2022-23 school year) and deferring some large scale maintenance needs.
Recap
An operational referendum is necessary due to:
lack of state funding
inflationary impacts
increasingly competitive market
One-time federal funds (ESSER) no longer available to help sustain ongoing operations
A three year operational referendum allows us to help maintain our educational system for our students!
When to Cast Your Vote:
The residents of the East Troy Community School District should look for the school referendum question when they vote on the April 4, 2023 general election ballot, either in person or absentee.
Ballot Question:
“Shall the East Troy Community School District, Walworth and Waukesha Counties, Wisconsin that the revenues included in the School District budget be authorized to exceed the revenue limit specified in Section 121.19, Wisconsin Statutes, by $3,000,000 per year beginning with the 2023-2024 school year and ending with the 2025-2026 school year, for non-recurring purposes consisting of operational expenses to help maintain existing programs and staffing?”
The East Troy School District does not have enough predictable and stable funding to maintain quality educational opportunities for students, attract and retain quality staff in an ever competitive labor market, and simultaneously, adequately maintain its school facilities within the state-established revenue limits. Like many districts in Wisconsin, there is a gap in operational funds to run the district’s day-to-day operations as revenues have not kept pace with inflation.
This State-wide problem has resulted in the East Troy Community School District doing 10.2 million dollars in budget balancing efforts over the course of the last 16 years (as of the 2022-23 school year) and deferring some large scale maintenance needs.
We addressed a budget deficit of over $779,000 in the 2021-2022 school year, and a $1,169,069 deficit for the 2022-2023 school year (which included $780,000 of one time ESSER funds), thus having this carry over expenditure of $780,000 toward the 2023-2024 school year.
The revenue cap gap is projected to continue. Expenses continue to increase and revenue lags behind. In addition, there was a two year zero dollar allocation per pupil for Pk-12 public schools in the 2021-2023 state budget.
An early estimate for the school year of 2023-2024 has a structural deficit of $2.3M (this includes the ESSER expenses carried over from the 2022-2023 school year) with ongoing deficits projected of 3.5M for 2024-2025 and 5.2M for 2025-226.
Staffing:
Keeping and attracting high quality staff is a high priority: This past school year, we had over 39 certified license staff leave the East Troy school district for other career opportunities, for a total turn-over of over 75 staff due to resignations and retirements. Quality services happen by having quality staff. Education is a competitive market as public schools and private sector organizations are all working to attract and retain quality staff. The School District of East Troy must represent stability per funding, provide proper staffing support, and offer competitive salaries and benefits to keep our current staff, and attract high quality staff in the future.
Normal operating expenses outpacing revenue:
Items such as bussing for students, technology, insurance, and utilities have increased at rates faster than revenues. Also, this is the second year of a biennial budget without any additional funding on a per pupil basis ($0). In fact, our total revenue limit and per pupil aid is only higher this school year (2022-2023) by $219,590 or 1.3% over the 2018-2019 amount.
Maintenance and Facilities:
While the employees within our maintenance department work extremely hard, there are more projects than funding. In spring 2022, the Board completed a facilities study to help us develop a long-range facilities plan. In this plan, we identified over 100 maintenance items from high, medium, and low end projects that need funding. The Board elected to focus on specific “high” level projects. Of those, the following projects were identified within enhancing safety and security, and fixing aging building infrastructure:
Renovate Prairie View’s main entrance to bolster security and control visitor access per current safety standards.
Relocate and renovate the middle school’s main entrance to bolster security and control visitor access per current safety standards.
Redesign the middle school’s traffic patterns to better separate vehicles and pedestrians and create different areas for parent drop-off/pick-up and bus drop-off/pick-up.
Replace roofing at the Prairie View, middle, and high schools.
Repair the upper gym wall at Prairie View due to water infiltration.
Update the middle school science classrooms, which are more than 50 years old.
These larger scale maintenance projects typically require borrowing in order to pay for them. A capital referendum would allow the district to borrow funds to address critical replacements, make large-scale repairs, and enhance safety and security.
A majority of all school districts’ revenue is controlled by the state via a formula called the revenue limit. The purpose of the revenue limit is to cap - or limit - the amount of money a district generates from the two largest sources of school funding (revenue). These sources are state equalization aid and property taxes. However, total revenue may not exceed the limit set by the state formula unless a referendum is approved by the voters.
The District is heavily reliant on the State funding system that has not kept pace with inflation and school needs. In fact, the East Troy Community School District revenue limit has always been lower than most other districts. This is because when the state created revenue limits in 1993, low-spending, frugal districts like ours were locked into a very low limit. In fact, only 15% of the schools in Wisconsin had a lower revenue limit than East Troy in 1993. If East Troy’s revenue limit per member was at the State average in 21-22, East Troy would have had $500,000 more for that school year - a significant impact on the services our school community would experience. If East Troy cumulatively would have had the State average revenue limit per member since 1993, the additional funds would have exceeded 29.4 million as of the 2021-2022 school year.
In the last 16 years (as of the 2022-23 school year), the district has done $10.2 million in balance budgeting efforts which means:
Changes and reductions in all benefits
Moderate wage increases
Making energy efficiency gains
Restructuring positions and eliminating positions
Applying for grants and gifts
Refinancing debt
Pre-paying debt to minimize interest costs in the long term
Elimination of programs and services
Deferred maintenance
Controlled levy increases; responsibly used ESSER funds
Over the course of the last nine years, school taxes have gone up on average of 1.03% per year. In 2021-2022, the East Troy mill rate was $7.29 as compared to $10.42 in 2014-2015.
The district used the federal pandemic relief funding (commonly called ESSER) to address student and staff safety, HVAC, student learning, and operations over the course of the last few years. These funds were also used to help offset the 2022-2023 deficit, but are no longer available.
The district completed the high priority heating and ventilating project at the Middle School which was offset by one-time ESSER funds.
After much discussion among the board, two major themes came to the forefront: keeping operational as a high priority and controlling the tax impact. Though the board recognizes the importance of addressing high priority facility needs, Board members felt there should be only a single question given the tax impact if both the capital and operational were to be addressed at this time. As a result, the East Troy School Board voted unanimously to set an operating referendum for the April 4 election asking voters to allow the School District to exceed its revenue limit by $3 million each year for each of the next three years.
If approved by voters, the amount the district could levy from taxpayers would begin with the 2023-2024 school year and end with the 2025-2026 school year (3 years for non-recurring purposes) toward helping to maintain programming and staffing. The estimated tax impact of the referendum would be $1.40 per each $1,000 of equalized value.
Even though this referendum will not cover the entire projected operational gap of 11M over the next three years nor address the needed capital projects, the Board of Education is addressing predictability of funding and providing support toward more stability within the operations of the district. The district will continue to utilize the work of the operational subcommittee, the community survey, staff, student and family surveys, the 2023-2025 biennial budget once known, and other updated information toward determining how best to address the capital needs and any additional operational needs going forward.
“Shall the East Troy Community School District, Walworth and Waukesha Counties, Wisconsin that the revenues included in the School District budget be authorized to exceed the revenue limit specified in Section 121.19, Wisconsin Statutes, by $3,000,000 per year beginning with the 2023-2024 school year and ending with the 2025-2026 school year, for non-recurring purposes consisting of operational expenses to help maintain existing programs and staffing?”
An operational referendum is necessary due to a lack of state funding, inflationary impacts, increasingly competitive labor markets, and one-time federal funds (ESSER) no longer being available to sustain operations.
Without a referendum, significant cuts will need to be made because the district must have a balanced budget. A reduction or elimination of 15 to 26 staff members, larger class sizes, programming reductions, continued difficulty with staffing in a highly competitive labor market, inability to implement best-practice instructional strategies that support our personalized learning policy, and greater changes to health insurance plans and or salaries would be some of the needed actions to balance the budget.
Continued budget balancing efforts (10.2 million dollars of budget-balancing efforts at ETCSD have already occurred in the past 16 years as of the 2022-23 school year) will create additional challenges for the district. In 2023-2024, it will become even more challenging to attract and retain quality staff members. Likewise, if students leave the district due to program cuts or large class sizes, the district will lose even more revenue and our projected structural deficit will be even greater due to the fact the three primary factors of the revenue limit are based on: enrollment, per pupil state allocation increases, and any referenda.
This is a statewide issue. In April 2023 alone, 51 Wisconsin school districts will be seeking operational referenda. A main reason for the budget short-falls is due to the state imposed revenue limit not increasing with inflation. The following chart compares the difference between previous indexing and actual changes for adjusting the revenue limit.
Wisconsin’s education spending was ranked 11th in the nation in 2002 and fell to 25th in the nation in 2020.
Since 2018, 184 school districts have passed non-recurring referendum questions. These districts, through community support and additional funding, have more resources to invest in 21st century skills, programming, and quality staff that students need to succeed in an ever changing world.
The operational referendum will be used to help maintain our existing programs and staff only. This includes salaries, benefits and paying bills to operate. Nothing in the referendum plan includes purchasing equipment for the weight room. The athletic department does have a budget, which is not growing with the referendum funding, that may be used to replace or repair equipment. Most of the weight room, however, has been funded through the booster club which are outside of district funds.
In March of 2022, the East Troy Community School District board approved an offer for the sale of the land located at 2043 Division Street, East Troy, which was the former site of the Chester Byrnes School. The plan for the vacant land is to build several single family units on the property which the board recognizes will help with tax base growth and hopefully assist the district with enrollment directly or indirectly. Lastly, the full sale price was $400,000 and the one time revenue was $374,030 after commissions and fees.
To determine your voter status, register to vote, request an absentee ballot, find your polling location, and view sample ballots, please visit myvote.wi.gov.
There are different deadlines to request an absentee ballot or vote in person depending on where you live or if you are in the military, overseas, indefinitely confined, or in the hospital. An absentee ballot must be returned by mail or delivered to your municipal clerk and must be received no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day, April 4, 2023.
Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. Visit the myvote.wi.gov My Polling Place page and enter your address to find your voting location.
School Funding Reform
Why It Matters
What is It?
School funding impacts opportunities for every kid, adult, and community.
What do we mean when we talk about "school funding reform?"
Why a School Referendum?
How to Fix It
Learn why schools in Wisconsin put questions on the local ballot.
Specific changes to the school funding system can work for our state.
Since we are a small district under the constraints of WI public school revenue limits, our current level of staffing does not allow us to be able to answer everyone's individual questions. However, a significant amount of annual reporting and resources that will help to answer your questions, will be able to be found on this page.
Please continue to check this page for updates and more information.
Other Resources
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