Gillett school leaders breathe ‘sigh of relief’

Gillett Superintendent Todd Hencsik started his report to the school board Nov. 10 thanking board members, the administration team, district staff and parents for a collective team effort in passing a referendum question two days earlier.

“It completely was a sigh of relief Tuesday as the results started coming in,” Hencsik said. “I just want to thank you for all of your work and your help in going around and spreading the message of the why behind the referendum. It worked.”

With 57.9% voting yes, Gillett School District voters gave the board permission to exceed state-imposed revenue limits by $600,000 for the next three years. It is a non-recurring referendum, meaning the district will need to go back to the voters in three years if it needs to continue to levy at the higher level.

Hencsik said it was encouraging that the voter turnout was higher than it was when the district’s last successful referendum passed in 2018. Gillett went back to the voters Nov. 8 after a failed referendum question in April.

About 79% of all school referendum questions passed this fall, Hencsik said — 75% of all non-recurring questions, 82% asking to issue debt for building projects, and 79% of recurring referendum questions.

The superintendent presented a written list of possible action items now that the annual budget is bolstered with taxpayer approval.

“I would caution us right now that we don’t have to work fast on this, but we still have to work,” Hencsik said. “I told staff Wednesday morning that we would have to go back to the conversations we started last year about staff compensation ideas, before the referendum failed, and reactivating those.”

One of the priorities will be shifting salaries out of ESSER 3, the third installment from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, an economic stimulus program passed to counter the effect of COVID-19 related lockdowns. The district funded about a half-dozen positions with the temporary dollars in hopes the jobs could be saved with a successful referendum.

No decisions were sought at the Nov. 10 meeting, and Hencsik’s list was set to various board committees for discussion and recommendations.

Board member Jamie Heroux said not all of the items on the list were related to the purpose of the question.

“We went out to referendum on maintaining programs and making sure we could keep the building going,” Heroux said. “To me, that means that we’re putting money into classrooms or into items that directly help the curriculum in those classrooms. There’s a few items in here that don’t look like they’re falling into those categories … I think we need to be true to what we told the community.”

“I think you know the three items I’m talking about,” he said, without specifying what he meant.

Hencsik said the list was just an attempt to summarize district needs and to “get as much down on paper so we weren’t creating things from scratch.”

He closed the discussion by thanking the community for its support at the polls.

“The alternative would have been some really tough, culture-killing discussions,” Hencsik said.