by Superintendent Mitch Wainwright
One of the biggest referendum questions I am hearing from people as I meet with different groups around the community is, “Why does the District need $1,300,000 every year?” The simple answer is — we are not asking for that. Other districts around Mineral Point are asking for a specific amount of money, each year, for a specific number of the years. Our District is asking for a total of $1,300,000 one time, but we don’t plan to levy it all the first year.
The word recurring in the referendum is causing much of the confusion. What a recurring referendum does for a school district is allow it to add money to the revenue limit base. It creates an opportunity to receive additional state aid in the following year. A nonrecurring referendum essentially disappears each year. If Mineral Point was asking for $1,300,000 a year, for four years, we would really be asking for permission to tax you each year for a total of $5,200,000. At the end of the fourth year, that money would no longer be available to the District and we would have no option other than to come back to the taxpayers and ask for more money.
The District has worked with Baird Financial Services, a firm that works with hundreds of Wisconsin school districts on financial projections, to determine what the District’s needs will be for several years. As a conservative estimate, with a successful recurring referendum, we believe the District will be financially secure for at least four more years. I truly believe that will actually be more like five or six years before any additional action would be needed. In 2018, the taxpayers approved a recurring referendum of $350,000. It was anticipated that the amount of money would support the District for at least three years. Here we are six years later needing to ask for additional support. I think the school district has done an excellent job using taxpayer money to fund an outstanding educational experience for our students, as evident by our success in many areas and the number of new students wanting to be part of our school.
The total tax impact, spread out over the next four years, of a $1,300,000 referendum would be about $162 for every $100,000 of home valuation. Because the District wants to be mindful of the impact of rising costs for everyone, the School Board is committed to only taxing property owners the amount needed to balance the budget, which equals smaller tax increases for the next four years than if the District took all of the money at once.
- We are anticipating a need to levy $700,000 of the referendum for the 2025-26 school year. The estimated tax impact for every $100,000 of home valuation for that amount would be $62 annually or $5.17 per month.
- In 2026-27, the tax impact would be lowered to $2.67 per month,
- followed by $2.75 per month in 2027-28,
- and finally $2.92 per month in 2028-29.
We understand the burden of higher property taxes affects all of us who live in the Mineral Point Unified School District. This burden is hitting almost every school district in the state. Over the last five years, including this fall, eighty-eight percent of the school districts in Wisconsin have gone to the people for a referendum. Locally, here in southwest Wisconsin’s CESA 3, it is anticipated that number to be 28 of 31 schools needing a referendum now or in the very near future. State funding for public schools has not kept up with inflation, and we actually have received $0 in additional aid for six of the past ten years.
If you have any specific questions about the referendum, please feel free to contact me at 608-987-0740, email mitch.wainwright@mp.k12.wi.us, or find me at one of the many group meetings in the community. You can keep up with the latest at our referendum website: https://mineralpointschools.org/2024-referendum/
We want you to have the information you need to make an informed vote on November 5. We are fortunate to be part of a community that supports our students, staff, and schools in many different ways and we thank you for your continued support of #PointerNation.