Oconto Falls school budget approved

OCONTO FALLS — Electors attending the Oconto Falls School District annual meeting Aug. 20 approved a $26.8 million budget for the 2019-20 school year and heard the superintendent report that a referendum question may come before voters as soon as the spring of 2021.

The budget includes a property tax levy that carries a mill rate that probably would be unchanged from this year when it’s finalized in October and below the amount authorized in a five-year, nonrecurring referendum in 2017.

“We were actually afforded the authority to increase by as much as 23 cents per $1,000 (of equalized value) each year of the five-year nonrecurring,” Superintendent Dean Hess said. “So we didn’t do that last year, and we’re anticipating not doing it again this year.”

Part of the reason is that the district budgets conservatively, expecting a small increase in equalized valuation of property year by year, and values have increased by greater amounts in recent years, he said. The district expects to benefit by an increase in state school aid in the second year of the biennial budget passed earlier this summer in Madison.

This is the third year that the terms of the 2017 referendum will be in effect, and Hess said the schools are always thinking about what happens when the package expires after the 2021-22 school year.

“If you don’t replace it and if your fiscal needs are still there, you’re going to have a fiscal cliff, because the dollars that had been increased each year over the course of the last five years suddenly are not there,” Hess said, estimating the impact at $3.2 million.

The district is thinking that a new operational referendum might be needed if significant changes in how the state funds public education don’t occur by then.

“It’s extremely difficult to do that in the year that it expires because you have to double plan – for if it passes and for if it fails,” Hess said. “To say that that’s a pretty massive emotional withdrawal for people is an understatement of epic proportions.”

He said he expects to bring to the school board the idea of going to referendum at the Year 4 mark, the spring of 2021. The district will likely bring both operational needs and capital needs to the voters, he added, a reference to ongoing discussions about whether to replace Washington Middle School or try to repair the aging structure.

The district has been working to pay off long-term debt in an accelerated fashion in the “plan for the worst and hope for the best concept,” Hess said. The 2017 vote has also allowed a lot of improvements that had been deferred because of state-imposed revenue limits.

The current mill rate is $10.66 per $1,000 of equalized value. That means a homeowner whose property is valued at $100,000 would have paid $1,066 in taxes to the district last year.

A final vote on the tax levy and mill rate is expected at the board’s October meeting.

wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com