Members delay vote on tax levy until Oct. 28 meeting
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
It was a good news, bad news situation for the East Troy Community Schools Board of Education Monday night, when Business Administrator Kathy Zwirgzdas laid out the 2013-14 budget details for the members.
Armed with spreadsheets and official Department of Public Instruction worksheets, Zwirgzdas explained to the board how declining enrollment and less-than-expected state funding was impacting the budget, giving the district less money to work with this school year than expected.
Although, those numbers may be changing, said Zwirgzdas, as the district is will be receiving more state aid, somewhere between $350,000 and $450,000, and she had just learned Gov. Scott Walker was also looking at increasing funding for education in the next few days.
So, without exact figures to work with, Zwirgzdas told the board she balanced the budget through a little creative line-item cutting using the numbers she had now. But she cautioned the board there was very little wiggle room left, unlike previous years.
At the heart of the matter, is the district’s declining enrollment. The trend, which has been ongoing for the past few years, is worrisome to the board. Especially since it seems to be tied to district residents opting to go to other area schools in the Open Enrollment program. This year 178 students are going to neighboring districts while the East Troy district has only 79 students who live outside the district choosing to use the Open Enrollment option and attend school here.
Zwirgzdas showed the board a map of where the students who Open Enroll outside the district live. She said she had expected to find high concentrations of kids near the Mukwonago boarder, choosing to go to Mukwonago schools, but was surprised at the number of kids right in the village not using the East Troy schools.
“We need to figure out why (we’re losing students),” said board member MarthaBresler.
She went on to ask if they could start calling the residents who were not using their hometown schools and find out what their reasons were.
District Administrator Christopher Hibner agreed that the matter should be investigated further with personal phone calls, but cautioned against panic.
“Yes, we’ve had a slightly declining enrollment for the past few years,” he admitted. “But I really believe in what we’re doing here. We’re doing some really great things.”
“We need to stay to what we’ve been doing.
Board members decided not to vote on this year’s tax levy because of the uncertainty with exactly how much state funding the district would actually receive this year. The issue will be revisited at the Oct. 28 meeting, when Zwirgzdas has more information.
