The Mineral Point School Board held a special meeting Monday night to certify the levy for the 2026-27 school year.
— The first order of business was to approve the District budget, and the Board did so unanimously (with Christie Johnston absent).
The budget was approved with a deficit of $99,689. However, the District is projecting an outcome similar to last year in which a budget deficit was approved in the fall, but a surplus actually transpired at the end of the school year in June. This happens due to conservative budgeting estimates.
The Fund Balance will be maintained at 20%.
In some good fiscal news, the amount of operational referendum money to be used is approximately $225,000, which is much less than anticipated — it was estimated the District would need $850,000 of referendum money the past two years combined.
True to what was presented at referendum time in 2024, the District stated it would only levy what it needed, and not the full authorized amount unless necessary. This year, that means the District underlevied by $650,000.
(This begins the meeting.)
— The Board unanimously approved the levy (with Johnston absent), which is a 1.20% increase over last year’s and comes in at $5,627,035. This is one of the smallest increases the district has had in its levy for close to the last 20 years.
The Board was aware of the large property value re-assessment that took place this year in the City of Mineral Point and made a cognizant effort to keep the levy as close to last year’s as possible to help minimize taxpayer impact.
The equalized property value for our school district now totals $747,163,714. This is a 10.46% increase over last year when our equalized value was $676,405,444. This total helps to determine our mill rate. Our mill rate for this year is $7.53, which decreases by 8.38% from last year, which was $8.22.
Our open enrollment revenue continues to rise and is now at $1,136,090.
District taxpayer money being sent, by state law, to voucher schools in the WI Parent Choice Program and Racine Counties is $38,903 this year.
A 10 year history of the mill rate is below:
- 2026-27: $7.53
- 2025-26: $8.22
- 2024-25: $8.28
- 2023-24: $8.28
- 2022-23: $9.00
- 2021-22: $10.41
- 2020-21: $11.95
- 2019-20: $12.00
- 2018-19: $10.22
- 2017-18: $12.09
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— Unanimously approved (with Johnston absent) the hiring of Kelly Riechers for Middle/High School Food Service.
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— The next regular meeting of the school board will be Monday, November 14 at 6 pm.
— Please note: these meeting summaries are not to be considered official minutes. Rather, official minutes are approved at the following regular monthly board meeting.