CEDARBURG — The mill rate for the Cedarburg School District will remain the same this year.
The mill rate for the 2023-24 school district budget will be $6.50 per $1,000 of equalized property value. The 202324 tax levy is $24,608,318.
"The tax levy rate when it was set last year at $6.50 was the lowest rate that has been set in over 40 years for the district so we’re at a very good spot in terms of the tax levy rate for the community," said Director of Business Services Ben Irwin.
The School Board approved the budget last Wednesday. Irwin attributed the tax rate remaining the same to increases in property values and the revenue limit.
The Cedarburg School District was able to dodge a budget deficit of approximately $2 million for the 2023-24 school year due to the state Legislature approving an increase in K-12 education spending by $1 billion.
The money approved by the Legislature included a $325 per-pupil increase to the revenue limit in both 2023-24 and 2024-25 and increased the low revenue ceiling from $10,000 to $11,000 in 2023-24.
For the 2022-23 fiscal year, the District had a surplus of $290,549.01 with revenue exceeding projections in the General Fund, according to Irwin’s report. The ending fund balance in the General Fund as of June 30, 2022 is $9,971,644.83, which is 26.45% of General Fund expenses for 2022-23.
Irwin reported that total revenues are anticipated to increase by 1.33% in 2023-24 and expenditures are expected to increase by 2.12%.
This will be the last year of using federal ESSER grant dollars, which the school district has a little over $250,000 left, Irwin said. ESSER funds were distributed in three phases by the federal government during the past two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began, to assist school districts in covering the extra expenses that occurred with and due to the pandemic.
The budget also includes an inflationary increase of 4% for all staff.
“This commitment by the School Board will help retain and attract high quality staff for the district,” the report states.
2023-24 will be the fifth year of the teacher compensation plan approved by the School Board. Irwin reported that over the last five years, the district has invested in over $1 million into teacher salaries beyond negotiations.
At the School Board meeting, Irwin said negotiations are still ongoing with the Cedarburg Education Association.
The Cedarburg School District received over $14.5 million in state aid for 2023-24 but Irwin noted in his report that this will not result in any new usable revenue for the district since increases in aid are offset by the tax levy within the revenue limit.
Based on this year’s third-Friday count, the Cedarburg School District has a total student enrollment of 3,100, an increase of 24 students from last year.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) membership, which is used to calculate a three-year membership average and the revenue limit, increased by 13 compared to the final revised count from last year to bring the total FTE for membership to 2,964. Irwin reported that the amount of students open enrolling into the district increased by seven students compared to last year to bring the total number of open enrollment students to 177, or 5.71% of enrollment. According to Irwin’s report the number of students open enrolling out of the district increased by two students to bring the total to 71, or 2.29% of enrollment.
In addition, a deposit of $500,000 into Fund 46 has been budgeted for this year with the balance in the account to be over $1.6 million by the end of this year.
