This year's Budget Hearing and Annual Meeting will be held tomorrow (Wednesday the 6th) at 7:00pm in the High School Auditorium. The annual meeting is a statutory requirement where the electors of the district (that means you) approve the tax levy for the year and provide various other authorizations that allow the district to do business. Note that this isn't a meeting of the School Board, but of the electors of the district.
The budget documents can be found here. The compete 60 page district report is not yet available on the website.
Total general fund revenue the district can raise is determined by the State's revenue caps, which are explained here. - Basically the revenue cap takes what the district spent last year per student, adds a little bit and then multiplies it by the number of students using a three year rolling average. (Additional "categorical aids" are available for specific purposes, such as special education.) The district is allowed to raise that much money for general operations. The State then takes another complicated formula and determines how much general fund aid it will provide the district. The district can then levy the difference between the revenue cap and the state funding on the local property tax. Additional amounts are levied for voter approved referenda, in our case building projects.
Because Monona Grove has a high ratio of total assessed property valuation per student the percentage of state aid is relatively low.
This year's estimated revenue limit is $31,963,133 for the general fund. State aid will pay $11,871,795, leaving a general fund levy of $20,091,338. Additional community service fund and referendum approved debt bring the total proposed levy to $24,893,975 - which equals a levy of $12.91 per thousand of assessed property value.
Total expenditures will increase by 2.44% in this budget, but the levy mill rate will increase by 6.7% due to the changes in the aid and revenue sources. (Last year the levy actually decreased 2%).
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3 comments:
A friend gave me the annual meeting packet. I have two questions:
1. Last year fund 73 showed that the district had 30 million in an unfunded liability for retirement benefits. This year it shows 25 million. I can find now record that we paid 5 million. What happened? I can guess, but can you tell me?
2. Again with fund 73-last year it shows that needed to pay about 1.2 million to meet current obligations, but only paid 699 or 799 (do not have the figures in front of me-I am sitting here Rio.)
How did we pay for the remaining amount? If I look at the action around fund 73 for this year. It appears that we are paying for current obligations by borrowing from the state, right-wrong?
Thanks-
Henry George
1901 Progressive Lane
Monona, WI
Good questions, I'll forward them on to Jerrud for answers.
Our most recent actuarial analysis of the OPEB liability shows $25M, although a 2008 analysis appeared to be $30M. I don't know the origin of the discrepency but will find out.
Our current OPEB costs (fund 73) are about $850K. Currently everything is "pay as you go", and we are paying all OPEB obligations out of current funds. The OPEB payout can flucuate depending on the number of teachers that retire in any given year.
In order to meet our future obligations (that have already been accrued) we would need to put another $1.5M annually into this fund to retire the liability in 30 years.
Peter,
Thanks.
Henry
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