West Bend School Board to Push Massive Tax Increase
Next Monday the West Bend School Board will present their budget for next year. In it, they are going to push for a massive tax increase. Here are a few details that are emerging:
- Proposed property tax levy is about $31.5 million, an increase of 12.13% over last year.
- Proposed equalized tax rate is about $7.36 per $1,000 of value, an increase of 59 cents.
- 15 cents of that increase is due to the Badger project that was passed in the referendum.
The justification is that district spending will rise about 4% and the rest of the increase is because of a decreases in state aid. I’m digging into the state aid number because the raw aid number actually appears to be higher than last year, but perhaps not as high as they expected. They are lumping in things like library and transportation aid, so it’s going to take me a while to boil down the numbers. In any case, this is a school district that just got a $27 million referendum passed and are following it up with a huge tax increase. Funny, that 12.13% increase is painfully close to the unemployment rate in West Bend. They also passed a 4.5% tax increase last year.
The budget meeting is Monday, September 28th, at 6:30 PM in the Education Service Center across the street from Badger Middle School. There will be a budget presentation and then they will open up for public comment. I have a prior engagement and won’t be able to attend. Rumor has it that the pro-tax-increase folks are planning to flood the meeting early to hit the fire code capacity and squeeze out detractors. If you can’t make the meeting, be sure to contact the board members and let them know what you think.
UPDATE: Sure enough, they are full of baloney on the state aid. According to DPI, if you add state equalization aid, transportation aid, and library aid together, West Bend was paid $29,084,419 in the 2008-2009 school year. For this budget, they are projecting $31,291,816 for the same things in the 2009-2010 school year. In other words, state aid is actually going UP in real dollars. It appears that the district is playing the favorite game of politicians in claiming that aid that falls short of their expectations are a “cut.”
As a side note, if you add up ALL state aid in all possible funds, it totals $31,571,007, which is only slightly above the projected number they put in the budget, but that includes money for school breakfasts, mentoring funds, drug abuse prevention funds, AP funds, etc.
UPDATE: Former board president Charlie Hillman commented and provided us a better picture. I have verified his numbers elsewhere. In last year’s budget, Doyle used federal stimulus dollars to plug school funding. So the STATE portion of equalization aid for 2008-2009 was about $28.6M. The federal portion, which doesn’t show up in DPI numbers, was an additional $3.7M for a total of about $32.3M. The projection for 2009-2010 is about $31.3M. So… the district is projecting a REAL DOLLAR DECREASE in state aid of about a million dollars. If you add in all state aid, the district received $33.2M in 2008-2009 and is projecting about $31.3M for 2009-2010. That brings the projected decrease to just shy of $2M.
I was incorrect in saying that there was a real dollar increase in state aid. The funds are just showing up in different buckets. There is a real dollar decrease.
Hillman also gave enrollment at about 100 more students this year. I have been unable to confirm that number.
So now that we appear to have teased out the relevant facts, does it justify a levy increase of this magnitude given the economic situation of the people from whom the tax is levied?
... good to see WB school board is so ‘forward thinking’...
Posted by Smeety on September 23, 2009 at 1052 hrs
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1125 hrs
The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.
Posted by Smeety on September 23, 2009 at 1234 hrs
Don’t let Menomoneee Falls hear about this..the Superintendent will want another new car.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1315 hrs
I think we knew this was coming. Would this be decided in public or behind closed doors?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1410 hrs
MF Superintendent should be able to get a nice new car with the 9.1% levy increase we will be paying this year to educate fewer and fewer students while enrollment continues to drop.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1417 hrs
I have heard there was an increase district wide of at least 200 students this year, above and beyond what was projected. That is going to account for a big part of the discrepancy- decrease in state aid per student. Also, if you look at the school years 05-06, and each of the years after (until last year), the state aid was up over 31 million each of those years with significantly fewer students than there are now.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1648 hrs
state aid is actually going UP in real dollars
I have a hard time believing this. I do know that the State often changes its accounting methods. I will check this out. If you are right, I completely agree: An increase smaller that you would like is not a cut.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1702 hrs
Maybe this will help. Pretend it’s an increase in health insurance.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 1937 hrs
Looking into this further, if you look at the numbers here from last year’s budget planning from the school district website (pg 7) it shows the past enrollments and the projected enrollment this year and future.
http://westbend.k12.wi.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/496946/File/Budget 09-10.pdf
There was steady growth most recent years, then a small dip last year. This may account partially for why the state aid went from 31 million for several years to 29 million last year. Then as I said, this year there was an increase of 200 students beyond what was predicted. This puts student enrollment well beyond what it was in 2005-2008 but with the same amount of state aid as those years. State aid hasn’t been keeping up with enrollment increases or inflation and I bet if you figure out aid dollars per student, it has been a significant cut.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 2030 hrs
I assume now that the School Board is aware of the attempt to fill the room to fire code capacity, they will be moving the meeting to the HS auditorium or one of the gyms so they can get ALL feedback, not just what they want to hear. Or am I assuming too much?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 2042 hrs
Another ploy is to load the crowd with school employees. Watch out for that one. The other thing is to have spouses of SD employees speak as objective taxpayers.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 2116 hrs
Library Aid created by the common school fund is strictly for books, periodicals, online subscription services, multimedia, and computers for the libraries.
Go to dpi.state.wi.us/imt/csfqanda.html and Library Aid questions will be answered. Including library aid in a line with the phrase “full of baloney” is a bit misleading.Then follows this question: Regarding state equalization aid, transportation aid, school breakfast aid, mentoring funds, drug abuse prevention funds, AP funds, etcetera, are there rules as to how these monies may be spent as well? Can a district legally shift “school breakfast” and “drug abuse prevention funds” towards other budgets? What happens if a district is caught doing this without state permission (if permission can even be granted)? Let’s assume the DPI has posted online the rules for spending these monies .
The next question is what specific aid is not meeting the board’s expectations?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 23, 2009 at 2206 hrs
Maybe this will help. Pretend it’s an increase in health insurance.
... unless you are a teacher. In that case the generous taxpayers have got your back…
Posted by Smeety on September 23, 2009 at 2206 hrs
Does anyone know the details on Resolution #3 for the agenda - Board Member Compensation?
Surely they are not going to be looking for an increase in a year where state aid will be “decreasing” and most of the people they represent have lost jobs, had wage freezes or wage cuts. If this is the case, we certainly do have a board that is out of touch.
Now, maybe they are going to take a cut or freeze? One can hope.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 24, 2009 at 0631 hrs
Yeah, let’s raise taxes when people aren’t bringing home an income…that’s always wise.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 24, 2009 at 0915 hrs
OK folks, for those interested in the truth of the matter. I looked at the State figures and 2008/09 was odd in that the equalized aid from the State seemed to drop to 2004/05 levels. Had that really happened, we would certainly have heard a hew and cry from the District. Instead, Doyle and the DPI decided to use Federal simulus money for part of the payments. This gets reported in a different place. So, looking at total State payments, 2008/09 came in around $33.2 million whereas 2009/10 is estimated at $31.3 million. I think this may be an overestimation as further reductions are in the works. At the same time, using actual butts in seats counts show a student increase of a bit over a hundred students from Sep 08 to Sep 09. We thus conclude that this is a “real cut” and not baloney.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 24, 2009 at 1300 hrs
That’s helpful, Charlie. Thanks. Couple questions…
The $33.2 number you cited, what does that include? The projected $31.3 includes equalization aid, transportation, and library. Is that the same for the $33.2?
How much was given in stimulus? I know the governor did this, but the district is saying that all stimulus money had designated purposes. Are they not including the stimulus money included as part of state aid? Why doesn’t DPI show stimulus money paid to school districts? Does it not go through that department?
Also, where are you seeing the enrollment figures. I have asked for them and was told that the 3rd Friday count (or whatever it is) isn’t fully tabulated yet. Is that an estimate or a real number?
Thanks.
Posted by Owen on September 24, 2009 at 1354 hrs
I updated my post. I was able to verify some of Charlie’s information. Thanks for pointing out the federal bucket, Charlie.
Posted by Owen on September 24, 2009 at 1453 hrs
I appreciate your UPDATE. Don’t really know exact counts - a bit anecdotal. There are many points in the year where student counts are made to track transfer/drop-out rates, etc. I think the 3rd Friday refers to September and gives the beginning of year snapshot of actual students in class. Figures given on DPI site are often are filtered by “aid category”. You’d think I’d know more, but nobody weaves a more tangled web than a state bureaucrat.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 25, 2009 at 1218 hrs
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