The Au Gres-Sims School District

Taxes. It might as well be a four-letter word for all the distaste the word leaves in your mouth. They are, however, necessary for the functioning of public services like law enforcement, libraries, fire departments, and public schools. Toward the end of November and into early December, residents who live within the boundaries of the Au Gres-Sims School District will receive their winter tax bill and there is a very important point of note to this bill. When the winter taxes roll around this year, the portion for the schools will be higher than it has been in the past. This is because your summer tax bill was lower, as it did not contain the schools tax.

For years our school district has done two tax collections, one in the winter and one during the summer. This has been what people have come to expect, but that process came at a cost to the school district. By Michigan law, cities and townships may assess a collection fee for a secondary collection period of taxes, regardless of whether other public service tax collections are done at the same time. This fee, assessed to the district for every parcel of land tax was assessed on, ranged from $3.50 to $3.75 per parcel for the 2021 calendar year. While not every township and city within our boundaries assessed this tax collection fee, most did resulting in the district paying out close to $20,000 for our share of local tax revenue.

School funding is peculiar in that we do not start receiving our portion of state aid until October and local aid until December. This means that in the month of September we do not receive any incoming revenue, while still needing to make payments on bonds, supplies, and payroll. In the past this has meant accepting the $20,000 fee as the cost of doing business, which was necessary to make payments during the month in which revenue was not coming in. This year, we have changed from doing this secondary summer collection, which had previously plugged the no-revenue stream Septembers of the past, and instead are in a stable enough financial position to borrow from our own fund equity until the first state aid checks start coming into the district. This allows us to be good stewards of the public’s money and put that additional money into the education of our children.

While your winter tax bill may be higher than you are used to seeing, please know that it will only be higher for the school portion by the amount that was not collected during the summer. Back in August the voters of this district approved the renewal of our non-homestead millage on the promise that it would not impact their taxes. That promise is still true, but only when taken into the context of looking at both the summer and the winter school tax collections combined.

With the exception of a few last-minute make-ups that will take place on Monday due to absences, we are all done with our NWEA testing for Fall!! Now the important work begins of digging into data and coordinating interventions for students to fill any missing skills that they need. We have several different ways to accomplish this across the district, from small group classroom interventions, Title I support, Seminar classes in high school, and the use of our ExactPath tool, which gives each student their exact missing skills in reading, language, and math. NWEA is just one piece of data that we use to determine the needs of students, and help them on their journey to become stronger students!

Now that the data is complete, I can start looking at some totals for House points! The competition is going strong already this year, and the game can change at any time! I am looking forward to sharing Marking Period 1 results in a few weeks!

Finally, letters went out this week to all 2nd and 3rd-grade families, as well as any Kindergarten and 1st-grade families of students with an Individual Reading Improvement Plan (IRIP) to invite you to the Read By Grade 3/Title I Informational meeting. This meeting will be taking place on Wednesday, October 5th from 6:30-7:30 in the Elementary Library. It is highly encouraged that all 2nd and 3rd-grade families attend to learn about the law and the supports we have in place surrounding it. If you have any questions regarding this meeting, please contact me at (989)876-4686.