School Board moves toward referendum

District might seek $2 million for operating costs on April ballot

By Michael S. Hoey

Correspondent 

The Delavan-Darien School Board took the next step toward asking its taxpayers to pass a $2 million referendum this spring at a workshop Jan. 2.

The board took no official action, but none of its members opposed a referendum, and the board set another special meeting before its Jan. 13 meeting to discuss the wording of a potential referendum. The board could then approve placing the referendum on the April 1 ballot at the Jan. 13 meeting. The board must take action by Jan. 21 to have a referendum in April.

The referendum that would be placed on the spring ballot would be for operating expenses – a type of referendum never before passed in the district. The district has had building referendums passed as recently as 2006, most of which covered improvements to the high school auditorium and locker rooms.

The referendum would also be recurring, meaning the local taxpayers would be responsible to pay for it as part of the tax levy in Year One. After that, the $2 million would become part of the base and count as revenue in determining state aid and result in an increase in state aid to the district.

Business Administrator Carey Bradley said property owners would see an increase in their taxes of about $1.20 per $1,000 of equalized property value in Year One – $120 for the owner of a $100,000 home.

The district had several meetings last spring and this fall to discuss possible ways to do things more efficiently in the district. Some of that discussion centered around a “center-school” approach of repurposing district schools to more efficiently use resources.  Superintendent Robert Crist proposed some new ideas Jan. 2.

“It is time to bring things to a culmination,” Crist said. “We are at a point where we need more resources to accomplish the things we want to accomplish based on the strategic plan and maintain what we have.”

Crist said the district needs to hire personnel. The district has already used $1.8 million of its reserve fund to hire additional employees this year that were not originally budgeted for.

“We can either do without and be understaffed or we can use the reserve,” Bradley said.

Crist said if a referendum is not passed, the district will be forced to prioritize its personnel and cuts will have to be made.

One reason, Crist said, the district is in the position it is in is because the district receives less shared revenue from the state per pupil that other districts. For example, the Delavan-Darien district received $9,185 per student this year. Linn Joint 4 received $15,163. Geneva Joint 4 received $14,077. Big Foot received $11,975. Fontana Joint 8 received $11,512. Lake Geneva Badger High School received $11,500. Lake Geneva Joint 1 received $9,541.

Crist did not have a firm answer for why there is such a disparity. He said some of those districts might have had referendums in the past. Others may have benefited from the qualified economic offer that began in 1993. The QEO placed revenue limits on school districts in an effort to keep property taxes down, something Crist said has been accomplished. The problem was that state funding was then based in part on what districts spent the previous year, so districts that had been prudent in their spending received less money than districts that had spent more going forward.

Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 legislation came up in discussion several times. Crist said that legislation, which forced all public employees including teachers to pay more toward health insurance premiums and pensions, provided short-term help but each tool it provides is a short-term fix.

As an example, Crist said, the district still pays toward health insurance premiums for its employees and that may have to change in the future. Sooner or later, Crist said, those kinds of Act-10-provided solutions to budget problems will be exhausted.

“It comes down to how much do you want to balance the budget on the backs of public employees,” he said.

The real problems in Crist’s opinion are the structural deficit in state shared revenue that allows some districts to receive more money per student than others and the surcharges the state and federal government have passed on to local school districts. Crist said the state is requiring districts beginning next year to implement a new evaluation method for teachers that requires 40 hours of training by administrators and diverts much administration time to evaluations. The district has already hired a new administrator it would not have otherwise needed to handle the expected increased workload on administration.

In addition, Crist said, the federal Affordable Care Act is adding about $200,000 in surcharges the district must pay, money that could otherwise be used to pay the salaries of three teachers.

Bradley said the structural deficit basically places limits on district revenue that do not cover increases in costs because they were designed solely to control property taxes.

“It is like the district is living on a fixed income and the cost of bills keep going up,” Bradley said.

Bradley said the only way the state provides to local districts to increase revenue is to ask its taxpayers through a referendum.