Boyceville Community School Board discusses annual audit and upcoming referendum
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By Renee Bettendorf
BOYCEVILLE – At their regular monthly meeting held on February 21, the Boyceville School Board heard from Sheanne Hediger of the accounting firm Baker Tilly about the district’s annual audit report, discussed the upcoming referendum and heard several reports.
Hediger’s firm started their field work last July and completed the audit report in December. Most parts of the report were very similar to last year’s audit with revenues and expenditures pretty close to what the district had budgeted. Revenues were about $37,000 over budget and expenditures were about $57,000 under budget. General fund expenditures were just over $9 million, according to her report.
“The general fund fund balance is really a key metric to the financial health of the district,” said Hediger.
The district’s general fund is divided into two categories; assigned and unassigned. Assigned are amounts that are intended for specific purposes and are internally designated by either the board or management. The unassigned is the residual positive fund balance that can be used for operations, said Hediger.
Hediger said the assigned category of the general fund is pretty similar to previous years. Of the $307,000, 111,000 of that is for early retirement benefits, about $145,000 was set aside for the fiscal 2024 budget and about $2,000 for the school forest signage.
When the report was generated the district had $2.7 million in the unassigned category of the general fund. The total ending fund balance was just over $3 million, that is down about $340,000 from the previous year, according to Hediger.
Her firm likes to compare the unassigned fund balance to the general fund expenditures for the year. This gives them an idea of how long the district could pay its expenditures without receiving any revenue. They found that the district could go about three months, it’s recommended that districts could go at least two months.
“It’s a good measure of the adequacy of your fund balance,” she said of the comparison.
The transfer from the general fund to the special education fund was $998,000 in 2023. Which was very similar to the previous year. In fact most funds didn’t have much for changes except for the community service fund which was up.
The long term capital improvement fund has grown by about $5,000 per year. Instruction, community service and support services are consistent year over year and so is the district’s debt service fund, said Hediger.
She also said debt payments were up in 2023, due to an additional $685,000 being paid on the debt. There is $2.4 million in outstanding general obligation debt and no new debt was issued last year. The district has a debt capacity of between $42 and $43 million which is calculated as 10% of equalized value of the district and only about 5.7% of the debt capacity is being used.
“You have plenty of capacity if you need to borrow for a large project,” she said.
Speaking of borrowing for a large project, District Administrator, Nick Kaiser updated the board on how the district is communicating with district residents about the upcoming referendum. Voters will be asked on April 2 to approve an $18 million school facilities referendum.
He said so far the school website has been their main way of communicating about the referendum. There is a video on the website that has been popular. The district recently sent out an informational newsletter to all residents in the district that outlines the various parts of the project as well as the tax impact.
The newsletter also informs the public about two community meetings happening next month about the referendum. One meeting is scheduled for March 7 at the middle/high school and the other is for March 19 at TCE.
Kaiser said he’s been attending town board meetings to discuss the referendum with board members and plans on sending more communications out to parents.
“Hopefully we can get this information into the hands of everyone we can,” said Kaiser.
Reports
The board heard from Elementary Principal Jerim DesJarlais about the Achievement Gap Reduction (AGR) program. The program requires participating schools to create performance objectives with the goal of reducing the achievement gap between low income students in that school and other students in the same grade statewide.
TCE has participated in the program for eight years and reports progress towards achieving performance objectives at the end of each semester. AGR looks at math and reading for grades K-3.
“They are on track to meet a wide variety of their goals,” said DesJarlais.
He also talked about FastBridge, which is a math and reading assessment that grades K-5 students take three times per year. His report showed that the majority of students at TCE fall into the ‘on level’ or ‘approaching level’ groups. Fastbridge categorizes students into five groups which are; far below level, below level, approaching level, on level and above level.
High School Principal, Patrick Gretzlock, spoke about the 2024/2025 course offerings handbook, which is something that he brings to the board each year for approval. He highlighted two new dual credit courses that may be offered next school year. Dual credit courses allow students to earn both high school and college credits during the same class.
He reminded the board that last year they approved replacing AP calculus with a different calculus class called College in the Schools (CIS) calculus. BHS students who successfully completed the class were awarded four University of Minnesota college credits. Feedback from High School Math and Science teacher Andy Hamm about the CIS calculus class has been positive, said Gretzlock. As a result, they are looking at adding CIS physics to the course offerings.
Another new class they want to offer is Infant and Toddler development, which would be a dual credit class with Chippewa Valley Technical College and would be taught by Family and Consumer Education Teacher, Laura Debee. The idea behind offering dual credit classes is to provide opportunities for students to earn college credits while they are in the building, said Gretzlock.
He also told the board about a new program they started at the beginning of the third quarter in the middle school called The Academic Penalty Box. The program restricts internet access to students who have a failing grade. They are prohibited from playing games or going on YouTube, the only thing they can do with their chromebooks is schoolwork.
“We continue to look for ways to address the volume of students who are failing coursework,” said Gretzlock of the penalty box.
He said the first group of students put on the Academic Penalty Box list had received a failing grade at the end of second quarter. Students are placed on the list for a two week period and grades are then reviewed and the list is updated. So far this program has had a positive impact on grades. Depending upon the success of the program, it may be implemented at the high school level.
Gretzlock also talked about COMPASS, the new daily academic intervention time for all middle and high school students and its possible effects on failing grades. He referenced data from February 16 where 56 high school students, representing 29% of the student body, were failing a total of 99 classes. On February 21 there were 41 students failing 77 classes.
At the same timeframe during the second quarter of this school year, there were 73 students representing 35% of the student body failing 141 classes. He said most students are not on the F list for long.
“It’s working really well at the moment, it’s exciting to have those numbers,” said Gretzlock.
Board Member Amber Carlsrud asked if there were certain classes that students were more likely to get a failing grade.
“The simple answer is yes,” he said.
He went on to say that teachers have different styles of teaching and grading. Some teachers don’t grade a student until they have turned in assignments. Often students who have a failing grade in these types of classes do pass the class in the end.
In other business the Boyceville School Board:
• Learned from Gretzlock that all BHS seniors are required to take a personal finance class.
• Heard from Special Education Director, Rebecca Hanestad about staff development.
• Heard from Carlsrud and Board Member Jeremy Mittlestadt about the State School Board Convention.
• Approved the retirements of Elementary Teacher Joan Klassen and Elementary Paraprofessional Lisa Kane.
• Approved the resignation of Custodian Tracy Link.
• Learned that BHS Senior, Peter Wheeldon is the 2024 Wisconsin Academic Excellent recipient.
• Learned that there are currently no seniors who have plans to attend technical college, so there are no candidates for the Technical Excellence Scholarship.
