Gillett school officials state their case to city council

Gillett Public School District officials got a little pushback when they presented the Gillett City Council with their case for a Nov. 8 referendum question.

The district is asking voters for permission to exceed state-imposed revenue limits by up to $600,000 a year. A similar question was defeated in April by a 53% to 47% margin.

During a presentation to the council, Superintendent Todd Henscik said the district is just trying to maintain existing services, which had been supported for three years by a successful referendum question in 2018.

“We’re not looking to do anything more, or add anything else, or any building or anything else like that,” Henscik said.

After losing the April referendum, the Gillett School Board made a number of cuts as it prepared the 2022-23 school year budget.

“We did cut several teachers, a bus route, delayed buildings and grounds projects, reduced all paraprofessional hours down from 8 to 7.5 hours a day. We took $200,000 in fund balance designated for use over this school year,” Henscik said.

The district also used its grant under the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund to pay for six teachers, but because that was a one-time expenditure intended to help districts recover from COVID-19 related lockdowns, those dollars will need to be replaced somehow if the teachers are going to remain.

Henscik said passing the referendum is crucial to maintaining school programs and services.

“If we cannot have this $600,000 per year for the next three years, we’re going to have to make some very, very deep cuts, and that’s the last thing anybody wants to do,” he said.

The property tax mill rate will stay the same and actually decrease even if the referendum passes, Henscik said, in part because of an unusually large increase in equalized valuation. The mill rate is the tax levy per $1,000 in valuation.

“We feel like we’ve been good stewards of your taxpayer dollars,” he said. “We were authorized to levy an additional $600,000 for the past three school years; we only levied on average $450,000 because that’s all we needed. We make that promise to you again that we’re only going to take what we need.”

Board member Ron Lenz said the board has been tightening its belt for a long time, and especially since the April question failed.

“We’re doing that by making the necessary cuts to satisfy the lack of a referendum,” Lenz said. “The thing is we can’t do that for too many years in a row or we’re going to end up with large class sizes, less teachers, maybe some programs out altogether — not making any threats, but too many of those are going to cause a cycle of less students.”

Lenz noted that his children graduated from Gillett, his six grandchildren are current students and his wife taught there for 37 years.

“It’s a great school and we need to keep it up, and all we can do is come here and ask for money,” he said.

Alderman Gary Spaulding interrupted the presentation when Lenz said asking voters for help is the district’s only option.

“That’s not true. That’s not true. There’s other resources to get money out there,” Spaulding said. “You gotta start running that school more like a business instead of reaching into the constituents’ pockets all the time.”

He said some school districts have established “innovation centers” funded with donations from local businesses. Spaulding said he toured a school with such an innovation center, various industrial education shops and a 600-seat auditorium.

“They’re running it like a business, and they’re selling it to the community,” said Spaulding, who did not identify the district in question.

Henscik said Gillett would love to have such innovation centers.

“If we know any businesses in our community that would be willing to donate that, I would love to have those conversations,” he said.

Mayor Josh McCarthy said the Gillett School District provides value to the community, citing its efforts to help his daughter and other students who fell behind during the statewide COVID closures.

“It’s a great set of teachers that do their job at such a high level,” McCarthy said. “I can’t thank the school district enough for not only my child but other students who were struggling during that time.”