By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
East Troy Community School District Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas had good news and bad news for the School Board Monday night when she presented the September head count that is used to calculate the district’s state aid funds.
The good news is that for the first time since 2008 the district saw an increase in enrollment.
The East Troy schools have seen declining enrollment for the last six years in a row, but the trend goes back as far as the 2001-02 school year, Zwirgzdas said.
“Since 2001-02 there have been some years with some increases, but the general trend has been declining enrollment. This is the first year in a while, since 2008-09, that we have increased in head count,” she said.
The bad news is that because of the loss of the declining enrollment exemption monies and the reduced hold harmless amount to be paid to the district, there was a $152,000 shortfall that had to be made up with further budget cuts.
Zwirgzdas explained to the board that the projected budget she worked up previously had the district declining in enrollment along the same trend it has seen for the past several years.
When the actual numbers were calculated from the third week in September, she said she was pleasantly surprise to see that enrollment had increased by 23 kids from last year, when using the three-year rolling average the state requires district’s to use when figuring state aid numbers.
Because Zwirgzdas budgeted for 1,666 students this school year and the September head count came in a 1,736, there are actually 76 more children going to school in East Troy than her projected budget accounted for.
Unfortunately for the district, the declining enrollment exemption (which is calculated on the three-year rolling average) of about $280,000 that Zwirgzdas budgeted for is now only about $65,000.
“It’s a hard thing to explain that we have more kids, but less money to work with,” Zwirgzdas said.
But it’s not all bad news for the budget; Zwirgzdas was able to make up the $152,000 with budget cuts and a large part of those cuts was the $50,000 the district gained because its open enrollment numbers out of the district dropped to 177 this year and its open enrollment students into the district rose to 76.
“It was the very first year we did not see an exponential increase with our open enrollment out kids,” Zwirgzdas said. “I very much liked seeing that.”
While this might all seem like the district is getting the short end of the stick, Zwirgzdas pointed out that it is a temporary thing as the declining enrollment exemption is only for one year and the district was at a loss because it wasn’t in a good place with enrollment in the first place.
“The original enrollment projection with the exemptions of $152,848 and $282,370 totaled $435,218 that would penalize us in the 2015-16 school year. Now we are only going to take a $65,886 hit next year reducing our projected $800,000 shortfall to about $450,000 next year,” Zwirgzdas said.
While it might pinch now, the best way for the district to reduce its financial problems is with increased enrollment, District Administrator Dr. Chris Hibner said Monday.
Listening session reminder
There is a referendum listening session/walking forum set for 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 20, at the High School, 3128 Graydon Ave.
For more information, visit the district’s website at www.easttroy.k12.wi.us.
