PW-S budget includes last of pandemic relief funds

PORT WASHINGTON - The Port Washington-Saukville School Board last week approved a preliminary 2024-25 budget — the last to include pandemic relief money — that promises to hold the line on taxes but reflects a $232,543 deficit that must be reconciled by October when the final spending plan is inked.

“These are very preliminary numbers, and hopefully by October we don’t have a deficit,” Interim Supt. Mel Nettesheim said, adding the estimates used to create the budget are conservative.

If there is a shortfall, the district will tap its fund balance to reconcile the budget.

Although the 2024-25 budget is relatively stable, these are uncertain times for school districts across the nation that, after receiving federal Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief money for the last three years, will have to adjust to a post-pandemic-funding era or face falling off the so-called financial cliff.

The Port Washington-Saukville School District will spend the last of its ESSER funding — $1.2 million — in the 2024-25 school year, which begins on July 1.

“For the last three years, we’ve had ESSER funds. Now every district is concerned about a future without them,” Nettesheim said. “We will have to make some hard decisions next year about what we want to spend our money on.”

The district, however, is better positioned than some to deal with the end of ESSER funding, Nettesheim said. That’s because instead of using that money to pay for recurring expenses, for instance the hiring of additional employees whose salaries would have to be covered by local funding sources rather than relief funding next school year, the district generally used it for one-time expenses such as increased pay for existing employees who assumed additional duties in an effort to address the so-called learning lag caused by the pandemic, she said.

The exception to that is the $75,000 in relief money the district spends to compensate members of its building leadership teams, which were created to track and improve student achievement at each of the district’s five schools.

There are also other uncertainties in the district’s future. Although enrollment is generally stable, the average number of students in the district over the last three years has declined, making the district eligible for a declining enrollment exemption worth $440,000 in the 2024-25 budget. There is no guarantee the district will receive that exemption next year.

In addition, the district at some point will have to grapple with deferred maintenance as well as a space crunch at Saukville Elementary School. The only significant maintenance project included in the budget is the repair or replacement of the air conditioning system at Lincoln Elementary School for $150,000.

The district does, however, have $174,964 remaining of the $49.4 million it borrowed to expand and renovate Dunwiddie Elementary School and Port Washington High School after voters approved a referendum in 2015. That money must be spent on projects at either of the two schools it was intended for, and Nettesheim said the district plans to use it this year to either repair a roof at Port High or the school’s football field bleachers or both. Even if the roof repairs usurp the referendum funding, the district may have enough money from other sources to pay for a simplified repair of the bleachers, she said.

A center section of the home-side bleachers has been closed for two years because of failing supports. When asked if the repair will be completed in time for the beginning of this football season in August, Nettesheim said, “That’s the hope.”

Among the increased expenses reflected in the 2024-25 budget are salary increases for all employees that range from 2% to 4%, part of a concerted effort to keep compensation on pace with inflation and protect the district’s ability to attract and retain employees.

The district is also adding the equivalent of three teachers and support staff members and anticipates a 5.3% increase in utility costs and a 3.2% increase in transportation expenses.

In addition, the district has budgeted an additional $232,543 for school voucher payments, bringing its total anticipated voucher payment to $1.3 million a year.

When students who qualify for the program use a voucher to attend private schools tuition free, the public school district in which they live must transfer the funding they receive for those students to the private schools they attend. The public school district can then increase property taxes by the amount of their voucher payments.

Health insurance costs are also increasing, but Nettesheim said an anticipated 13% increase is good news.

The district switched to a self-funded insurance program last year to keep its premium costs flat. While the cost of the self-funded plan is increasing by $13%, quotes indicate the district would have been saddled with a 32% increase under a fully-insured plan, Nettesheim said.

Working in the district’s favor, in addition to the ESSER funding and the declining enrollment exemption, is a $325 per-student increase under the revenue limit. Per-pupil state aid remains the same as last school year.

The result is a projected tax levy of $18.3 million, an increase of $176,910, or about 1%. But because of an anticipated increase in property values, the tax rate is expected to decrease by 7 cents to $7.13 per $1,000 of equalized value.

Equalized property values will be finalized in October, when the School Board will approve the final budget and tax levy.