EM school board reviews preliminary $13.6 million budget for 2020-2021 school year
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
ELK MOUND — The Elk Mound Board of Education has reviewed a preliminary $13.58 revenue and expenditure budget for the 2020-2021 school year, representing a 2.9 percent increase over last year.
The emphasis is on “preliminary,” said Eric Wright, district administrator, in reference to the budget reviewed by the school board July 20.
The school district will have to wait on exact numbers for the school district’s equalized property value and the amount of state aid before the budget numbers can become more precise, he said.
Slower economic activity because of COVID-19 is expected to decrease the state’s sales tax revenue, although no one knows if or how the decrease in revenue will affect state aid for school districts.
The impact of COVID-19 will also affect the school district’s budget, depending on the options for students that parents select, and the district will most likely have to hire more employees for custodial positions and food service as well as teachers, para-educators and bus drivers, Wright said.
While the preliminary budget for 2020-2021 represents a 2.9 percent increase over the 2019-2020 budget, the 2019-2020 budget represented a 3.4 percent increase over the previous year.
The preliminary budget projects the local property tax levy for Fund 10 at $2,315,166 and the local property tax levy for referendum debt service at $1,017,387, for a total local tax levy of $3,332,553.
The projected mill rate for the 2020-2021 budget is $8.09 per $1,000 of property value, or $809.04 per $100,000 of property value.
The difference in the gross levy from last year is $119,097.
The mill rate last year was $826.94 per $100,000 of property value, and this year’s projected mill rate represents a decrease in the local property tax levy of $17.90 per $100,000 of property value.
Wright said he had based his projections on a 6 percent increase in the school district’s property value. The last two years, the increase in the property value was 7.9 percent and 6.5 percent.
The estimated equalized property value for calculating the projected mill rate is $411,912,438.
The school district will receive the exact numbers for the equalized property value at the beginning of October.
The estimated amount of state aid for the Elk Mound school district for 2020-2021 is $8,574,149.
The Elk Mound school district’s annual meeting is scheduled for August 24 at 8 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
The regular school board meeting will begin that evening at 6:45 p.m.