Due to a lack of funding from the state of Wisconsin, public schools across the state are struggling to meet the operational needs in their school districts. North Crawford has not been immune to this. While our operational costs continue to increase, our revenue from the state has flat lined the last two years. This has created a sizeable gap in revenue and expenses, resulting in the district deficit spending. We have been able to mitigate that spending by backfilling our budget using federal Covid relief money, known as ESSER. As we project to expend our ESSER dollars in total early in the 2023-24 school year, we will have a sizeable gap to fill in revenue, which will be filled with additional dollars through the Operational Referendum.

A recurring operational referendum means that the North Crawford School District will be asking voters to authorize the school district to exceed the state-imposed revenue limit by $900,000 a year, beginning in the current school year, and going forward for the life of the district. The operational question is recurring, meaning the additional $900,000 in revenue will be built into the district's base revenue, and will be there for as long as the district is in existence.

The NCSD recurring operational question is a little bit unique in how it is structured. Instead of asking for the full $900,000 up front, the district will phase in the additional revenue over a four year period. The district will gain $300,000 of additional revenue in the first year, another $250,000 in the second year, $200,000 in the third year, and $150,000 in the fourth year. It won't be until the fifth year and beyond that the district realizes the full $900,000 in additional revenue. The district structured the question that way to minimize the tax burden on district residents, and to gain full advantage of state aid which is gained as a result of additional spending.

The additional operational revenue is needed for the district to continue offering competitive wages and benefits for district staff. Recruitment and retention of staff is one of the biggest issues facing rural schools today. North Crawford needs to continue to offer a competitive salary and benefit package for all staff.

Additionally, as a rural district, we pride ourselves in offering our students quality educational and co-curricular programs. We offer high school students several Advanced Placement courses, as well as a plethora of career and technical educational courses to prepare our students to be college and career ready when they leave North Crawford. Our middle school students benefit from a combination of core classes in math, science, english language arts, and social studies, as well as exploratory classes such as music, art, Spanish, tech ed, and several others. Our elementary students benefit from smaller class sizes, where teachers can provide individualized instruction to meet the needs of all learners.

As students' needs change from year to year, so does the manner in which our teachers instruct students. This requires changes in curriculum, new textbook adoptions, updating and upgrading technology, and the purchase of supplies and materials.

Finally, none of us are immune to the rising costs that we face on a daily basis. Likewise, our school district is experiencing many of these same increases. It's more expensive to buy fuel for our district vehicles, utility bills continue to increase, supplies have become more expensive, and the overall costs of operating a school district have increased.

On average, we will see a mill rate increase of $.31 per $1,000 of equalized value. What this means is the average tax increase for district residents will be $31 per $100,000 of equalized value.

Without additional operating revenue coming into the district, we will be forced to begin looking at areas to cut in the district. This will undoubtedly result in the elimination of educational and co-curricular programs in the district. With the elimination of programs, comes the reduction in staff. Middle and high school students will not have the educational options and opportunities they once did. We may see larger class sizes in the elementary, all but eliminating opportunities for individualized instruction and support. Students will be forced to sit on a bus longer, and co-curricular opportunities will be limited. The district will be forced to evaluate all of our programs and staffing in the district.

Email: bmunson@ncrawford.k12.wi.us
Website: www.northcrawford.com
Location: 47050 County Road X, Soldiers Grove, WI, USA
Phone: (608) 735-4318
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057263208876
Twitter: @northcrawford