Glenwood City School District sets mill rate at 7.1
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By Renee Bettendorf
GLENWOOD CITY- The Glenwood City School board held their annual meeting, budget hearing and regular meeting on Monday evening. Five district residents attended the annual meeting and along with the board approved a mill rate of 7.1.
The rate is a decrease of one point from last year. The new mill rate was approved after District Administrator Patrick Olson gave a lengthy presentation about the 2024/2025 Glenwood City School district budget.
Olson started his presentation by thanking his administrative team for their help in formulating a budget framework. He noted that the budget will be finalized in October. All of the presentation documents can be found in their entirety on the school website.
Olson talked about the school district’s motto which is ‘Every Student, Every Day’. He said the motto is the core purpose of the school and he is working towards achieving that core purpose.
“Our core purpose has been a mainstay for our district. But there is definitely a focus on when we are going to get to that point” he said. “We are not there yet”.
He challenged the audience, the board, himself and the administrative team to live up to the core purpose.
“Let’s not let this be some fancy logo that sits on a poster,” said Olson.
During the annual meeting Olson outlined some academic goals for the 2024/2025 school year in the areas of English language arts and math. He also talked about a new program the school implemented this year called Character Strong which teaches values like respect and integrity.
He also went over changes that were recently made to the school day schedule, the addition of a student insurance policy, the new cell phone policy, staff training and the new athletic/event cameras which have streaming capabilities.
Olson then gave a lengthy budget and finance update which started with some basic school district facts. According to his report, the district sits on 50 acres and the building is 173,510 square feet. Currently there are 119 school employees and 52 of those employees are teachers.
Last year the district had 653 students, the number for this year has not yet been determined. The poverty level among students in Glenwood City is at 8.3% down from 10.6% from last year. The current state average child poverty rate is 11.9%, according to Olson’s report.
Olson went over some building enhancements that took place over the summer and continue to be ongoing. A number of the projects were funded by insurance money the district obtained from the storm damage that occurred in the summer of 2023. Some of the projects included roofs, improvements to gyms, remodeling in the weight room as well as various miscellaneous projects.
After going over some numbers Olson recommended setting the mill rate at 7.1. Last year the mill rate was 8.1. He said that even with a decreased mill rate, district residents’ taxes may not go down due to the valuation of their homes.
In fact, taxes may go up minimally due to the fact that St. Croix County is growing fast and has higher property values especially in the western side of the county, according to Olson.
“Home valuations are the driving force,” said Olson.
His report compared the mill rate to other local districts. The lowest mill rate for 2023/2024 was in Elk Mound at 5.32 while the highest was in Plum City at 8.86. He provided a history of Glenwood City mill rates going back to 2011/2012. The highest rate that took place during that time period in the district was in 2016/2017 at 10.04 and the lowest was in 2022/2023 at 6.91.
According to his report the general fund balance for the district is up from last year. State aid to the district is projected at 6.2 million, local tax revenue is expected to be 2.6 million and federal aid is projected at about $160,000.
Olson discussed student enrollment during his presentation. He said that the district has lost 90 students since 2010. However, the district saw a 4.7% increase in enrollment last year. Currently there are twice as many students open enrolling out of the district as there are students open enrolling into the district.
The board discussed enrollment in general. They touched on on-line learning, home-schooling and how aid is distributed to the district for those types of students.
The board and those in the audience also discussed special education. According to Olson’s report 20% of students in the district are in special ed. One member of the audience asked if special ed student numbers are increasing. Olson said they are and that is true of other districts as well.
Major budget items were also discussed at the meeting including: an increase in health insurance costs, the hiring of a new teacher, restitution for fraud from the previous district administrator, community ed projects, the new playground and legal fees.
During the regular meeting which was held after the two hour budget hearing and annual meeting, the board approved going forward with the purchase of tools for the CTE department at a cost of $125,000. They made the approval after hearing from Jarrod Kuehn, the district’s new CTE Woods/Metal Instructor.
They also approved looking into purchasing a screen/projector system for the elementary/middle school gymnatorium. Olson provided one quote for the project which put the system at just over $38,000. He said he would get another quote and bring the matter back to the board for consideration.
After hearing from Director of Student Services Erin Spaeth and board member Jodi Main, the board agreed to create a school registered nurse position. The position will combine the health assistant and RN consultant positions.
