Gillett passes $3.25 million school tax levy for 2020-21

COVID-19 delayed annual meeting for a week
By: 
Warren Bluhm
Oconto County Times Herald News Editor

The Gillett School District emerged from a two-week all-virtual experience with “no hitches,” Superintendent Todd Hencsik said last week.

“We got our numbers down from about 150 affected students and staff down to around 40,” Hencsik said after the Oct. 14 annual school district meeting, which had been delayed by a week after in-person classes were suspended.

The school board had authorized running the Acellus Digital Curriculum in parallel with five-days-a-week in-classroom experiences, in part so that a transition to all-virtual learning could be as seamless as possible.

The transition worked as well as could be expected when it actually happened, Hencsik said.

As of Monday, the state Department of Health Services reported a total of 1,751 positive tests for COVID-19 in Oconto County, more than double the number that had been recorded when Gillett decided to go all-virtual for two weeks starting Sept. 29. Three more COVID-19 deaths have occurred in the county this month, for a total of seven since March.

About two dozen people attended the annual meeting, all of them staff or school board members. Three board members were unable to take part — Board President Jamie Young announced that Nanette Mohr was in COVID-19 quarantine and that James Karls and Ron Lenz were unable to readjust their work schedules for the meeting, which was originally planned for Oct. 7.

Hencsik introduced the meeting by saying the district was presenting a balanced budget for consideration, with net total expenditures of $9.58 million and a property tax levy of $3.25 million, a 7.24% increase.

The board was scheduled to approve a final mill rate of about $9.86 per $1,000 of equalized valuation during its regular monthly meeting on Thursday evening.

“While that’s up from $9.49 this year and quite a bit more than in 2017-18 and 2018-19 when it was $7.70, it’s still lower than in 2013-14 and 2014-15 when it was $11.64 and $10.49 respectively,” board treasurer Cliff Gerbers said, during his review of the budget.

While the budget and levy are approved at the annual meeting, the final rate had to wait until Oct. 15, when the state Department of Public Instruction posted state general school aids that school districts will receive during the current school year.

The department said Gillett will receive $3,846,382 in general aid this year, a 1.21% increase over 2020-21 but $35,855 less than the district budget released at the annual meeting.