Speakers at the second listening session Feb. 2 regarding Shawano School District’s intentions to trim $1.6 million from its operating budget for next year continued to support keeping programs off the chopping block, but they also questioned the accelerated timetable to make those cuts happen.
Currently, the Shawano School Board is scheduled to have a work session Feb. 12 to discuss the available options and the feedback from the listening sessions before meeting Feb. 23 for a final vote on where to cut. This came after Superintendent Kurt Krizan sent a memo to staff Jan. 9 about the need to trim the next budget, providing a window of six weeks before action is taken.
A vote on the final 2026-27 budget itself does not take place until the end of October.
Officials have expressed concern about tapping into its fund balance, which currently sits at almost $10.3 million, about 29.7% of its annual expenses. Financial experts recommend that school districts keep savings of 20-30% in case of catastrophic incidents and also to prevent the need for short-term borrowing because of the odd scheduling of the state in sending education aid payments.
According to statistics posted at both listening sessions and included in the memo, if the district does not make cuts this year and depends on its fund balance to make up the shortfall, the savings account would drop to $8.7 million, which would be 24.5% of annual expenses. A second year of inaction would drop the fund balance to $7.3 million but still be at 20.1%, just above the recommended minimum threshold.
In the 2025-26 budget, the school board voted to use $1 million from the fund balance to keep it balanced.
Oliver Burrows, who teaches business and marketing at Shawano Community High School, was the first to suggest that instead of making a decision so quickly that the board take a year to come up with a comprehensive strategic plan that looks at the 20 options presented to the board in January, as well as other potential smaller cuts that do not make as big an impact on student learning.
“Good intel does not guarantee a good decision, but limited intel can guarantee a bad decision,” Burrows said, noting that he was asked by the Mosinee School District to help develop a strategic plan. “Some of the issues that are arising now in a thorough strategic plan would have been identified.”
The district approved a strategic plan in March 2021, but it has rarely come up in board discussions in recent years.
Burrows said developing a more comprehensive strategic plan in the next year with projections for the next 5-10 years would better prepare the board to right the ship. He noted that the plan would need to include all stakeholders, including staff, community members, businesses and students, and would be more thorough than administrators and the board making cuts in a six-week period.
Steve Stomberg, a SCHS agriculture teacher, could not attend the listening session, but he submitted written testimony and also questioned why the district was in a rush to make the cuts. He recounted how district officials claimed in 2022 that the schools faced a shortfall of $2 million, later recalculated at $2.2 million, in the next year’s budget.
The board at that time cut staff positions and relied on the fund balance to cover the cuts. Later in 2023, it was revealed that the district had a $2.6 million surplus, which was put back into the fund balance.
“Through the years, our school district has thrived with more students and less administrative positions. Now, it’s just the opposite with more administrative and tech positions and less students,” Stomberg wrote. “The district needs to be proactive in finding ways to attract students and retain high-quality teachers. Currently, staff morale is at an all-time low.”
Jill Hansen, a SCHS art teacher, said maintaining a 30% fund balance while even discussing cuts to programs and positions is putting fear in the hearts of the community. She also brought up the 2022 budget shakeup and noted that the district lost a lot of talented staff, more than 60 employees.
“I really want us to slow down, as Mr. Burrows said, and not rush into something for this school year,” Hansen said. “Maybe think about an option three. Maybe we can look at some small things.”
Shawano resident Gwen Hoffman also gave a thumbs-down to making drastic cuts now. She said there were no options presented to the board that looked at cutting administrative positions, just teachers and other staff, and that programs at risk in the 20 options are ones that are getting improved facilities through the capital referendum approved by voters in November 2024.
Hoffman also expressed fear that one of the options, eliminating block scheduling at the middle and high schools, would not reduce disciplinary issues that the schools experience.
“My primary question is, why now?” Hoffman said. “It appears the proposed reductions are a one-time savings. If that is the case, why can’t the expense be absorbed by the $10 million fund balance currently available to the district?”
After staff and community members spoke, school board President Tim Renard insisted the cuts need to be made now. He said the fund balance needs to be at its current level to pay teachers and other staff in a timely fashion.
“We’ve been in a negative budget for two years in a row, and we have a third year coming up,” Renard said. “If we don’t make cuts now, it’s $1.5 million this year, if we take no action now, next year it could be $2.5 million or $3 million. I don’t want to be in this continuous cycle where we’re looking at cost cuts every year.”
