‘It really comes down to the state’s not doing their part’

With the School District of Rhinelander board of education once again pondering the question of whether and when to pursue another operational referendum, school officials want the community to understand the reason the district is facing a budget deficit is similar to what residents across the community are struggling with as they put together their own household budgets — the cost of just about everything has gone up.

In addition to the rising prices with which all consumers have become familiar, school districts are also receiving markedly less support from the state, they added.

“It really comes down to the state’s not doing their part,” district superintendent Eric Burke told the River News in a recent interview.

According to Burke and district finance director Bob Thom, “state revenue has only gone up 3.38 percent while (the district’s) expenses have gone up over 16 percent.”

“The cost of everything has gone up considerably, and that’s the biggest thing that’s made a difference,” Thom said, noting that students returned to class after the COVID-19 pandemic with different needs.

“So when we had that last (operational) referendum (in November 2022), we were just coming out of COVID. It was our first full year of school again and we had just run a budget surplus,” he explained. “So at the time it seemed like, hey, the referendum we have in place is enough. So we actually went for less money. We were getting four and a quarter million. We dropped it to four million thinking we don’t need to run a surplus. We just want to be able to break even. And then all of a sudden all these kids came back (following the COVID-19 pandemic) and we had all these issues and they needed the behavior specialists, they needed more mental health things.”

At the same time, the school board voted to increase staff pay to bring the district’s wage scale more in line with other districts. There was also a need to add other supports at the elementary school level so that the community’s youngest learners, who were arguably most affected by the pandemic in terms of learning interruption, would not fall behind. 

According to Burke, there’s evidence those decisions have led to quantifiable results in the form of higher test scores. 

Surveys also show improvement in student and staff engagement and satisfaction, he added.

Another huge piece of the picture is rising special education costs.

“We’re transferring nearly $5 million dollars from our regular budget to pay for our special education costs in the school district, which has gone up considerably over the last five years,” Burke explained. 

“When I got here, we transferred like, I think, $3.8 million that first year. Now it’s going to be $5 million,” Thom added.

According to Burke and Thom, Rhinelander is seen as a strong district in terms of special education services. 

“When (students) came back (after COVID), you know, then we started identifying that they had a lot more needs or, you know, low reading and behavior issues. You know, kids at that age, when they miss a whole year of school and they come back, you know, they end up getting referred to special education a lot of times and that’s (caused) a big jump in the population of kids who’ve been identified (as needing special education services),” Thom added.

Burke and Thom noted that Gov. Tony Evers has proposed a major increase in special education funding for public schools but it remains to be seen how the state legislature will respond. 

Meanwhile, the state also has a budget surplus of more than $3 billion that remains untouched because elected officials have been unable to agree on how to spend it. 

There’s an evaluation process in place that helps the district determine what kind of special education services a particular student needs, Burke added.

According to the Wisconsin Administrative Code, Wisconsin special education eligibility categories or impairment areas are: autism, intellectual disabilities, emotional behavioral disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, significant developmental delay, speech/language impairments, specific learning disabilities, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairments.

Burke and Thom insisted the district has taken steps to mitigate expenses, including by not filling certain positions as well as curtailing contracted and consultant services, but they don’t want to implement further cuts that would undermine the progress that has been made.

“If we’re going to make a significant reduction in order to balance the budget, it’s going to come at a great cost to the work that we’re doing,” Burke said.

Both officials said they certainly understand that voters feel frustrated that the district is dependent on referenda but stressed that the $26 million capital project referendum approved in April, which the voters supported by a large margin, was necessary to upgrade antiquated technical education facilities that no longer meet student needs.

Without the updates, the tech ed facilities are no longer sufficient in terms of training the next generation of the local workforce, they explained, noting that the district focuses heavily on career readiness with a goal of ensuring that every student who walks out the door with a diploma is ready for the next step on their path to success whether that involves joining the local workforce immediately, attending technical school or college or military service.

Whenever the next operational referendum takes place, Thom noted that taxpayers can be reassured that the mill rate remains low.

“The overall impact on the taxes and what we all pay for our property taxes is still going to be lower than it was a few years ago,” he stressed.

The school board is expected to further discuss the budget issue, and potential dates for an operational referendum, at its next meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 21.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].