“As with other districts, this is the perfect storm of: lack of new spendable money from the state, federal ESSER dollars expiring, and record inflation.”
River Ridge District Administrator Clay Koenig responded to the question on what should the voters of the school district should know about the question that will be presented to them this spring, asking them to exceed state-imposed revenue caps to keep the school running.
“This is just what is needed to continue our programming, we will not build fund balance with this,” Koeniog continued. “We will continue to be frugal in our spending.”
Decided last week as part of a special meeting, the school board approved the following question: “Shall the River Ridge School District, Grant County, Wisconsin be authorized to exceed the revenue limit specified in Section 121.91, Wisconsin Statutes, by $1,250,000 for the 2024-2025 school year, and by an additional $250,000 a year in each of the following years, in the 2025-2026 school year (for a total of $1,500,000), in the 2026-2027 school year (for a total of $1,750,000) and in the 2027-2028 school year (for a total of $2,000,000 and to remain at that amount thereafter) for recurring purposes consisting of operational costs to maintain instructional programs, staffing, technology and facilities management?”
In previous meetings about this issue, the reason behind this referendum is that over the past dozen years, the state legislature did not increase funding for education at a rate that matched inflation, and in several budget cycles, froze funding.
For example, the last budget the legislature froze education funding in response to not having control over ESSER funding from the federal government to help schools through the COVID pandemic.
ESSER funding was to help make improvements to keep children safe, as well as deal with shortfalls caused by an economic slowdown.
For River Ridge and many other districts, the one-time dollars were first looked at to be used for building improvements. Instead, the $1.094 million is getting used to cover shortfalls caused by the state’s freeze in funding last budget.
In addition, the district is using $1.281 million from its fund balance to cover costs for this school year.
The lack of funding in the previous state budget, and the lack to make up for it in this one, means that most smaller rural districts, like River Ridge, have tighter and tighter budgets, resulting in most of the districts of southwestern Wisconsin going to referendum already, or doing so in the next year.
The district will be setting up dates for informational meetings as well as adding information to the district’s website shortly.
