Wisconsin school districts have limited control over the amount of money they have to educate their students. Since 1993-94, the state government has imposed limits on the revenue school districts can receive from their two main funding sources: local property taxes and state aid.

Seventy-three cents out of every dollar are constrained by the state’s revenue limits. Although the school district has some discretion over its other local revenue, the amount it receives in federal and other state aid is out of its control. In 1993-94, the revenue limit in Mishicot was set at $4,666 per student, $1,152 below the state average of $5,817. In the same year, 24 school districts were allowed to have revenues of over $7,500 per student! Funding gaps have only grown worse.

Revenue limits in Mishicot have remained well below the state average every year since 1993. In 2021-2022, the revenue limit was $10,225 per student, $1,478 below the state average of $11,703 per student.

New federal funding in 2022 will help with learning loss created by the pandemic. However, these funds are set to expire. We need long-term improvements in fair funding. These unfair funding gaps will continue unless the legislature takes steps now to reform the state’s school funding system.

Mishicot not only faces the challenge of limited revenues. Its student body includes a large concentration of high-need students.

• 24% of students are from low-income families.

• 16% of students have disabilities requiring extra services.

• 9 students are learning English.

Providing high-need students with a quality education requires additional resources. The state’s funding system mostly disregards extra costs of educating high-need students.

Wisconsin is one of only a few states that does not provide extra aid for students from low-income families.

State aid covers only 29.6% of the extra costs to provide special education services.

Mishicot receives no additional state aid to provide English language instruction.

The amount of money Mishicot spends to educate its students is constrained by its available funds. The District must plan and be strategic and innovative in finding funds to continue to meet its commitments to our students outside of the state’s pocketbook. Mishicot has taken success in the area of facility planning and has since been implementing five-year plans in other areas to help spread the cost of large deferred purchases such as curriculum adoption materials, technology upgrades, athletic uniform replacement, and technical education equipment. Mishicot has implemented a Fund 46 Capital Expansion Fund to set aside funds each year. This affords an opportunity to accrue funds to provide for long-term capital project funding, for such items as future roof replacement and other facility updates. We have also remained focused on strategizing to save costs to help our bottom line. Some examples include reducing costs through procurement, collecting rebates, automating processes, and debt defeasance to reduce our costs through the elimination of interest. We have also pursued additional revenue sources such as grants and focus on energy rebates to assist with implementing cost-effective energy programs.

Supplies and other budget line items are held to a flat allocation in order to fund our budget increases without an adequate increase in state funding. To balance our budget, we scale back implementation of our equipment purchases or facility projects in order to add new programs or maintain current staffing levels. We hold these areas flat to allow for increases in other areas such as the cost of utilities, to provide the cost of living increases to staff, and/or to allow for the district to fund employee benefit cost increases such as rising health care premium costs.

It is important to reiterate that the School District of Mishicot is a low revenue spending district and 73% of our revenue is controlled by the revenue limit formula. The lack of state commitment to education funding creates an imbalance in available revenues to cover new and rising costs. Please contact your legislators and ask that they support adequate increases to school districts.

-Christine Thelen, Business Manager, September 30, 2022