Another year is underway; referendum going to voters
It is hard to imagine that we are in our ninth week of the school year. We have had some changes with an early start in August. With the early start, on Aug. 17 the teaching staff took a ride up north to Colby and joined the Abbotsford and Colby teaching staffs to listen to a presentation by Dr. Louis Cruz on jump starting the school year and what is the process and how does a district become a Professional Learning Community through collaboration between staffs. Dr. Cruz had a great presentation that influenced everyone in attendance. This process of collaboration is vital to learn, not only with our own staff, but also staffs from other districts.
I would like to take this time to say goodbye to our food service director, Jared Zemke. Jared has been with us for over five years and has shown his passion for this program and has done an outstanding job with the direction of our Food Service Program. Good luck to you, Jared, at ADS in Greenwood. Also, Megan Deickman, our Special Ed. Director, Title I director, and director of Pupil Services, has landed a different position outside of our district with Solution Tree. Megan, will stay on as our special education director on a part-time basis.
Speaking of other districts, I am excited for the opportunity to work with the School District of Greenwood on collaborating resources. We have established a committee that meets to collectively see where there are opportunities that we can look at and work together more efficiently. The push to really look at collaborating resources came this past summer when both districts struggled to fill their staffing needs and looked at what other areas can we be working together. This observation brought up the co-op of football and both boards agreed to go ahead and get football together. The committee consists of two board members and administration from each district. The committee decided to start having our teaching staffs collaborate starting this year, so we have three dates that we will be getting our staffs together to collaborate for part of the day. The first collaboration date is Nov. 4 at 1 p.m. in the Loyal high school gym. On Feb. 10, the staffs will meet in Greenwood at 8:30 a.m. Lastly, this school year represents the retiring of a five-year operational referendum, so on Nov. 8 the school district will be asking voters to again pass a five-year operational referendum. The last five to 10 years, 80 percent of school districts in Wisconsin have had to pass/go to an operational referendum to keep their school doors open.
There are some reasons why we need to go to an operational referendum, and they begin with declining enrollment. At Loyal we have had a slow decrease in enrollment and this year we are down 28 students in membership district wide. Also recently, staff salaries and insurance have had sharp increases.
At Loyal, we receive $10,000 per child, which is the minimum in the state compared to many other districts. This is not equal and is unfair, but is something we have to deal with, at least for now.
The district is asking to replace that referendum with a new 5-year non-recurring operational referendum of $1.1 million in 2023-24, which is an increase of $425,000, and $1.4 million the following four years, which is a $725,000 increase each year. One advantage to this amount is that Loyal is a highly aided district. That means that roughly 67 percent of the district’s revenue comes from the state in the form of aid. With this state aid our taxes are not extremely affected. Our current mill rate for the 2022 school year is projected to be 7.38 mills, up from 6.77 mills in 2021. With the passage of the referendum the mill rate is projected to increase to 8.01 mills in 2023, 8.21 mills in 2024, decrease to 7.28 mills in 2025, and decrease again in 2026 to 6.82 mills.
How do these mill rates compare to the past? In 2020 the mill rate was 8.74 mills and the previous four years the mill rate was above 9.00.
There will be informational meetings about the referendum on Oct. 19 and Nov. 1st at 7 p.m. in the high school gym and there will be a presentation of information at the annual meeting on Monday, Oct.24 at 7:30 p.m. in the high school gym. Any questions please feel free to contact me at 715-255-8511 ext.1300 or chrislindner@loyal.k12.wi.us.
Lastly, please remember to vote on Nov. 8. Thank you.
