PRESCOTT – In addition to providing residents an opportunity to view a snapshot of the district budget and tax levy, the Prescott School District also used its annual meeting, held Wednesday, Sept. 27, to lay out a vision on how to continually make the schools better.

The main event of the evening, though, was the budget review. While the district final numbers are still coming into focus, it looks as if the district will need to use more than $1.2 million of its cash reserves to balance the budget for the 2023-24 school year. In the spring, Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza warned the board that with federal pandemic dollars spent to cover for money not being received in per pupil aid from the state, the district would need an additional $650 per pupil via the two-year state budget. However, when it was passed this summer, the state budget will send half of that - $325 per pupil – to schools.

About a dozen district residents attending the meeting – most of whom were school district employees – approved the proposed tax levy of $10,143,148, up 4 percent from a year ago.

The information provided by the district to those attending the annual meeting provides an interesting snapshot of the district, which saw its overall equalized value increase by 17.8 percent from $1.14 billion last year to $1.33 billion this year.

The breakdown of equalized value by community and its percentage of the total land value of the district is:

• City of Prescott, equalized value of $544,577,600, 40.51 percent of the total district equalized value.
• Town of Oak Grove, $459,545,672, 34.19 percent.
• Town of Clifton, $269,043,007, 20.01 percent.
• Town of Diamond Bluff, $46,372,181, 3.45 percent.
• Town of Trimbelle, $24,694,768, 1.84 percent.

With the additional property value, the tax rate that will be used to compute property tax bills later this year will be $7.55 per $1,000 of property valuation, down 11.72 percent from a year ago.

City of Prescott property values were reassessed this year and its value jumped nearly $99 million in total equalized value, or 22 percent. Using that scenario, if a home was valued at $200,000 a year ago in Prescott and its value went up 22 percent, it would now be valued at $244,000. Using the proposed tax rate for the 2023-24 school year of $7.55 per $1,000 of property value, the school portion of the tax bill would be $1,842.20, compared to last year’s bill of $1,710.

Spicuzza started the budget introduction by giving those in attendance a “reality check” about school funding in Wisconsin. He pointed out several nearby districts that are putting together operating or capital referendums because state per pupil funding hasn’t kept up with inflation.

“That pendulum swing has only gotten greater,” he said.

The district is still awaiting final numbers, and the school board gets the final vote on the budget and tax levy later this month.

Finance Director Sue Gerdes said that losing the federal money amounted to more than $1 million.

“We did lose more than a million in funding, so I thought we did pretty good. We still have some work to do,” she said.

And there will be a lot of work to come, because the district won’t have available cash reserves to balance next year’s spending plan.

“Only this year,” she said. “It will significantly deplete our fund balance.”

Spicuzza thanked voters for their investment in the district in the $15 million capital project referendum passed last year, which will allow building efficiency, along with the plan that was implemented this year of swapping the middle school and intermediate school locations.

“We appreciate the investment in our buildings. They are more efficient,” he said. “We are very happy with the first months of school and the way the buildings have played out for the age and grade level.”

Spicuzza highlighted the district’s Vision 2035 initiative at the onset of the meeting.

He said the district has signs in the building pointing to its vision.

“It’s not something that we just put up on the walls, but it’s in how we act, how we set up and how we organize our different systems,” Spicuzza said. “Our vision is to make sure that we are delivering both meaningful and creative opportunities. We are very much focused on continuous learning, not just for students in the classrooms but for all staff that are working within our system, whether or not they’re licensed. It is specific to make sure that we’re looking at positive outcomes.”

Spicuzza said that state test results will be rolled out this week, and that’s one barometer of district success, but there’s much more.

“We are also examining how they are engaged in extracurricular activities, how they engage healthcare, community and community service and making sure that we are inclusive in our communities and respectful of all that come through our doors,” he said. “Our mission is to inspire lifelong learners, to make sure that there’s future success and that we are planning and helping that process, not just by the staff within the Prescott Public Schools but expanding into loops to include our families and also our larger community.”

Spicuzza said that having top-notch facilities that match grade levels was a critical part of the plan.

“The future Vision 2035 is critical, because we have just finished a long-standing strategic plan, and the challenge to our community is what do we envision for the next decade? What do we look at for the type of programs? How will our programming evolve and change to meet the needs of our current student but also future demands from the community and also from the workforce,” he said.

Another motion at the meeting was to keep board member salaries the same, with the president earning $2,500 and others on the board $2,000 annually.