Rib Lake projects $7.72 tax rate for coming year

Rib Lake School District taxpayers will be getting a break this December. At Monday’s annual meeting, district administrator Ricky Cardey outlined the budget showing a projected tax rate of $7.72 per $1,000 equalized value, or about $772 in school taxes on a $100,000 home.

Cardeywaspleasedwhenhementioned the “Increase in summer school students to a total of 232 students. That is 44% of the student body.” The district receives additional aid based summer school enrollment as it boosts the overall student numbers for the district. This year there are 44 new students overall in the district as compared to last year, Cardey was very pleased with that number.

District’s value increased from last year. However, he said will ultimately impact next year’s valuations.

The district also just got word that they received an electronic connectivity grant of $56,000, which will help the students gain access to technology that they can check out on a weekly basis. With this grant, the school was given 60 iPads, 90 chrome books and 25 Kajeetz, which are hotspots that will work with any company. Cardey was also pleased with the fact that they have a 5 year goal for technology replacement, and the district has completed this task in 3.5 years, through grants and district funding. A new technology goal is currently being constructed.

In the past year, Northcentral Technical College (NTC) had a three-day career fair, in which 17 students participated in. With this experience, they were able to learn valuable everyday issues.

Cardey said, “Mental health is a district priority. The district offers social and emotional learning, group counseling, and on-site counseling through Counseling Connections, of Medford”.

Another change from last year to this year, is the district hired a Speech and Language teacher this year, whereas last year it was paid through CESA.

Cardey also noted that the grant cost went up because the district has two full-time counselors again, which they haven’t had for some time.

Elementary staff has committed time outside of school each day to help struggling readers by learning new ways to teach the students in a collaborative approach.

Safety has improved in the last year, with the newly redesigned pick-up area at the elementary school. They also redesigned the student drop-off areas, and installed water bottle fillers to encourage water consumption, to minimize the child contact with water fountains.

Covid relief funds that the district received are going towards the increase of student achievement, focus on health and mental health, the improvement of school infrastructure, and offset the loss of revenue cap increases.

There has been an impact on transportation aid of $5,000 because more students were getting rides home from parents, rather than taking the bus. If a student doesn’t ride the school bus at least one time throughout the school year, the district can’t claim that student towards transportation aid.

Revenues from open enrollment are the same.

Long-term improvement fund is at $112,354. $16,000 of this balance was accumulated this year. With this fund, the middle school gymnasium will be replaced, however it might be in November, not in October as originally thought.

Following the annual meeting, board members met and approved routine short term borrowing for the year. This is done for cash flow purposes for payroll and other expenses between aid payments and tax settlements. The rate is the same as last year at 2.9618%.