Colfax Board of Education sets tax levy at $2.98 million
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Colfax Board of Education has set the tax levy for the 2019-2020 school year at $2,977,075, representing a $20,000 increase over the levy approved at the school district’s annual meeting in July.
The school district experienced not quite a half a percent decrease in state aid (.45 percent), said William C. Yingst Jr. at the Colfax Board of Education’s October 21 meeting.
The school district’s enrollment has decreased a bit, although property values have increased, he noted.
The proposed budget for 2019-2020 at the annual meeting included total revenues of $9,453,353 and total expenditures of $9,351,233.
The tax levy includes $179,569 for energy efficiency performance contracting; $10,885 for a land purchase; $72,776 for the unfunded pension liability; $412,638 for referendum-approved debt service; and $2,301,207 for the 2019-2020 budget for a total combined tax levy of $2,977,075.
The mill rate will be $7.98 per $1,000 of property value, Yingst said.
Last year’s mill rate was $7.99 per $1,000 of property value.
Property value increased in the school district by $21.64 million, according to information included in the school board packet.
The total property value in the school district is $373 million.
Eight or nine years ago, the property value in the school district was $310 million. The property value dropped to around $280 million, and now it has increased to $373 million, Yingst noted.
Property values decreased following the Great Recession and have slowly been increasing since then.
Last year, the total property value in the school district was $351.4 million.
Because the property values are increasing, “that is helping the revenue limit formula for state aid,” Yingst said.
A rule of thumb to remember is when the property value increases, the mill rate decreases, although any increase or decrease in taxes on a particular property depends on how the increase or decrease in value compares to increases or decreases in value for other properties in a municipality.
In the Colfax school district, the Town of Colfax experienced the largest increase in property value, going from $83.5 million to $87.8 million.
The Town of Tainter’s increase was the next highest, going from $50.4 million for the property in the Colfax school district to $54.6 million.
Property in the Village of Colfax increased from $47.9 million to $50.2 million.
Other business
In other business, the Colfax Board of Education:
• Learned that the annual Veterans Day program will be at 10 a.m. November 11 in the Colfax High School gymnasium.
• Learned that the savings in the Colfax school district from Colfax teachers teaching Chippewa Valley Technical College transcripted credit classes is $53,948 for the 2018-2019 school year. The classes include statistics, medical terminology and horticulture. If the students took those classes at CVTC or at another school district, it would cost the Colfax district, $53,948, noted John Dachel, high school principal.
• Learned that Colfax school board member Ken Bjork will receive a commendation for 30 years of service on the school board from the Wisconsin Association of School Boards on January 23, 2020, at WASB’s 99th annual convention. Ken Neuburg, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Todd Higbie, school board president, said Bjork has actually served 34 years all together on the Colfax Board of Education.
• Learned that the Colfax school district has an immunization rate of 99.62 percent.
• Learned that 72 students have open enrolled into the Colfax school district for the 2018-2019 school year and that 97 students have open enrolled out. Yingst said is he working on a survey to find out why people are open enrolling out of the school district. The survey will include a self-addressed stamped envelope to help increase the chances of the survey being returned. “We are looking for trends and patterns,” he said.
• Learned that the third Friday in September count was 815 students. The full-time equivalency number of students is 798. Early childhood students are counted as .5, and junior kindergarten students are counted as .6, which is why the FTE is always lower than the student count, Yingst said.
• Approved seven applications for the Early College Credit program for the spring of 2020.
• Learned that the Colfax school district has 1,110,175 minutes for the 2019-2020 summer and interim session. Summer school used to be counted as days, but now everything is counted by minutes, Yingst said. The total number of minutes includes summer swimming, summer school, Summer Saunters and the two days in August before school actually begins, he said. The summer program is aided by the state at 40 percent.
• Approved hiring Holly Friedrich as a teacher assistant.