By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The cost of doing business for the Burlington Area School District looks to be going up again this year.
With the added cost of 4-year-old kindergarten – a one-year, district-bears-all cost before state aid kicks in – the preliminary estimates from the district indicate a 3.78 percent tax levy increase, as presented at a preliminary budget meeting before the BASD School Board Finance Committee Monday night.
Factoring in equalized property values, the cost will go from $11.14 per $1,000 of property value to $11.56.
However, 25 cents of that increase is due to the one-year-only startup cost of 4K. The other 17 cents covers a drop in revenue, which includes an expected cut in state aid, as well as having to levy for referendum-approved debt.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet confirmed the numbers Tuesday, but stressed they are preliminary estimates.
“It is very early and preliminary,” Smet said. “It will also be lowered by new construction and changes in property values.”
Breaking it down
Burlington’s tax rate has risen from $9.05 per $1,000 of property value for the 2009-10 school year to the current amount.
The jumps in tax levy coincide, however, with declining enrollment within the district, as well as a loss of state aid when Act 10 went into effect in 2011.
However, for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, BASD managed to work without raising the actual tax levy, though the mill rate rose in both years, in part due to declining property values.
In 2012-13, the tax levy was $20.36 million – the same as 2012-13. However, the mill rate rose from $10.17 to $10.83.
In 2013-14, the levy actually dropped to $20.28 million, but the tax levy rose to $11.14.
In its preliminary budget for 2014-15, the district has proposed a tax levy of $21.05 million, a rise of 3.78 percent.
The mill rate of $11.56 is an increase of 42 cents. The net increase should bring in about $766,000 more to the district, without factoring in new construction or changes in property value.
The two biggest sources of tax levy for the district are the City of Burlington ($7.35 million) and the Town of Burlington ($7.03 million). The smallest is the Town of Brighton, which produces just $16.
The reasons
Burlington will be forced, as a first-year provider of 4-year-old kindergarten, to foot the full cost of about $456,000, since state aid is factored on a sliding scale.
Starting with the 2015-16 school year, though, the district will begin to get credit for those students, and enrollment is projected to be either on target or above expectations.
The district is also levying for referendum-approved debt this year, which it didn’t in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
“We’ve absorbed it in the general fund,” Schenning said of the past two years, She also added that, in that debt service, the district could levy for an addition $1.4 million, but has avoided doing so.
The final factor in the rise in the taxes is the declining enrollment BASD has been fighting since 2008. From a high of 3,632 students in the fall of 2007, BASD has dropped to 3,157 students last school year.
Enrollment is projected to be 3,165 for September of this year, but drop to 3,077 in 2015, 3,002 in 2016 and 2,863 in 2017.
The drop in students means a drop in state aid – though the state will allow a per-pupil increase of $75 this year.
Still, BASD is expecting about $14.5 million in state aid – a drop of about $550,000.
Student fees
The Finance Committee approved the following changes in student fees Monday night as well.
Only two areas will see increases – student book and materials fees, and school lunches.
School lunches at Burlington High School, Karcher Middle School and Dyer Intermediate will increase from $2.45 to $2.55, while elementary school lunches will go from $2.25 to $2.35. The changes are made to narrow the gap between free and reduced lunch costs and paid lunch costs.
All books and materials fees are going up $5, to $47 at BHS, $37 at Karcher and Dyer, $32 at the elementary school and 5-year-old kindergarten level, and $20 for 4-year-old kindergarten.
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I’m convinced the school board is intentionally trying to kill Burlington. We already have a glut of foreclosures and homes losing value and it’s simply because taxes are too high. Now you want to raise them even more?!
Waste of money there is no evidence that 4k is beneficial to children. In fact, some experts claim just the opposite.
It shows in your reply D Mankel that your parents must of failed to recognize the value of a 4K education….. Just my opinion…..
What are our city officials doing to attract more business to Burlington? This is concerning. The longer this goes on the worse it is going to get. More people will leave to areas that have better schools AND lower taxes.
Are you kidding! Compared to many other small towns Burlington is doing pretty well. I believe the population has increased something like 30% since the 1990’s. Many areas, particularly in the more rural areas of the state, have seen real population drain in that time period. My inlaws live in Rhinelander and their downtown is literally more than half vacant and the high school has gone from graduating classes of 350 to 150 since the early 2000’s. The times that I have been up there you could have literally layed down in the middle of the main street and not have to worry about getting hit by a car for 10-15 minutes. I do not think you can say the same thing about Pine St. or Milwaukee Ave.
I think that those who were alarmed at the hike only read the headline and not the entire article. As the entire piece stated this is a one year hike and not a very big one at that. There are many additional reasons including a drop again in state aid also mentioned in the article. If you kept up with other articles in the past year you also would have known that compared to other districts in our area we are very, very low in our tax rates. And I agree with Jerry, you should tour the rest of small town Wisconsin to see how the population has shifted. We are doing great! We are more than holding our own; we have a great area to live in and we have great schools.