At the annual school board community meeting on Thursday, Oct. 29, many crucial motions from the budget to the school board reduction were all passed without opposition.
“Even though times are tight with state funding and local funding, we’re able to approve a budget that continues to maintain our programming for our kids and our staffing levels,” Superintendent Dr. Durtschi said.
Unique to this annual meeting was the addition of community member input. Community members were allowed not just to sit in as members of the audience but also to vote on all resolutions and share ideas.
“It’s intended to be a chance for anybody that’s a resident or a voting member of our 14 municipalities that make up our district to participate, which was kind of a neat event,” Durtschi said.
One of the most significant outcomes of the meeting was the new tax levy. Due to Berlin having an increase in home values slightly above the state average, and a decrease in enrollment, there is now less money coming from the state and slightly more from property taxes.
“The item that directly impacts our property owners is that tax levy. So the total tax levy the district is requesting for 25-26 is $7,713,338,” Director of Business Services Tricia Polakowski said.
This is an increase from the $7,119,311 levy last year. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the school district is receiving more total funding.
“My guess is you’ll have a number of property taxpayers that see a little bit bigger bill when they get in the mail in December. That isn’t because we’re getting more dollars for our students and our schools, it just means that who pays those bills changed a little bit,” Durtschi said.
In addition to the budget, a new motion to reduce the number of board members was added to the resolutions this year. After a successful petition in September, the motion was put on the docket and approved without pushback.
“We added one this year through a process of petition drive, and getting signatures, and bringing it then to the annual meeting, which was to reduce the nine-member school board to seven over the next two years. That was also voted on by the electors, and it was a unanimous vote, and there wasn’t any further discussion,” Durtschi said.
Even with the coming reduction of the board and the shrinking of the district as a whole, the board members say they remain steadfast in their goals of keeping the schools going in the right direction.
“Despite the challenges of declining enrollment and budget constraints, our district continues to move forward. At the upcoming policy meeting, the board will take a closer look at the school report card, where we are seeing modest but meaningful improvements across several areas. These gains, though small, reflect the positive impact of our ongoing initiatives and hard work happening throughout our schools,” School Board President Catherine Kujawa said.
