School lunch prices to rise

District tax levy might drop in 2016 despite $20.42 million referendum

By Kellen Olshefski

Editor

The Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education voted in favor of raising school lunch prices slightly for the 2015-2016 academic year at its meeting Monday night.

The Board voted in favor of a 10-cent increase for lunch prices throughout the district.

Elkhorn Area School District Director of Business Services Bill Trewyn said Monday night the last time the district raised its prices was two years ago, a requirement from the federal government as part of the National Lunch Program. Trewyn said that is again the case this year, as last year they were able to submit a waiver.

Trewyn said the federal government looks for the district to have an average price equal to or above the cost to reimburse free lunch, about $2.70. However, Trewyn said most school districts are not and the government is giving a window of time for school districts to adjust their prices over a period of time, which Trewyn said he believes is 10 years.

In talking with Food Service Supervisor Ellen Leasure, Trewyn said they did a comparison of school lunch prices throughout the area, which indicated Elkhorn Area Schools have lunch prices that are quite a bit lower than surrounding districts, with Elkhorn falling between 20 and 30-cents lower than the average cost of a school lunch throughout the area.

“So, even with increasing them, we’ll still be in that range of being low because they’re also increasing their prices,” he said.

District Administrator Jason Tadlock said there are some districts that have chosen to forego the lunch program and pay for free and reduced lunch prices themselves, however, he said Elkhorn Area School District has such a high percentage he doesn’t see a way that math would work out for the district.

The board voted unanimously in favor of raising prices from $2.05 at the elementary school, $2.20 at the middle school and $2.30 at the high school to $2.15, $2.30 and $2.40, respectively.

Tax levy might decrease

The School Board took its first look at the 2015-2016 preliminary budget Monday night, getting a sense of what’s to come and learning that despite passing a referendum to borrow about $20 million earlier this year, this year’s tax levy might actually drop slightly.

Trewyn said they’ve put together the preliminary budget based on the assumption that the Wisconsin State Finance Committee’s completed version of the budget or something similar is what the state budget will look like. The current version of the state budget, according to Trewyn, freezes the per student inflationary adjustment to the revenue cap formula over the next two years, about an adjustment of $50 to $75 per year after Wisconsin Act 10.

Budget reductions included in the district’s preliminary budget include the reduction of four staff positions due to attrition, about $320,000, a one-year $300,000 reduction of the annual maintenance budget, elimination of the supplemental kindergarten through eighth grade textbook budget, $65,000, elimination of the facility and referendum budget for this year due to the referendum, $25,000, savings through fewer school days, $29,600, and increasing health insurance by only 1 percent due to 85 percent of active employees reaching the Silver status in the district wellness program, savings of about $400,000.

Trewyn said the total proposed tax levy for 2016 is estimated at $18,825,012, about a 1.52 percent reduction from last year. He said this tax levy includes the debt payment, both principal and interest, on the $20.42 million referendum approved on April 7 this year by voters.

Trewn said state equalization aid is still a very early estimate and increases or reductions in this estimate would have an inverse impact on the tax levy.

With this estimate, the mill rate is estimated at about $10.75 per $1,000 of equalized value, meaning owners of a $100,000 can expect the school district portion of the tax bill to be about $1,075, an about $17 decrease from last year.