Marathon sets $1.6M referendum for Nov. 5

By Kevin O’Brien

Marathon School District officials will soon start making their case for why voters should approve a $1.6 million recurring referendum this fall after the school board voted last week to put the question on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The board adopted a pair of resolutions at its regular monthly meeting on Aug. 13 – one authorizing the district to exceed its state-imposed revenue limit by $1.6 million per year and another to put the question to voters in the fall election. Board members also approved an agreement with Quarles & Brady, who will serve as financial advisors for the referendum.

Discussion was brief among the three board members in attendance. At the board’s June meeting, the board heard indepth presentations from superintendent Rick Parks and financial advisor Debby Brunett of RW Baird, who laid out the case for why the district needs to go to referendum.

Since the district’s last operational referendum in 2018, Parks said the district has added a total of 11 new positions, most of which are full-time, based on the needs of students and the desire to improve academic achievement. During that same time period, the number of students attending school in the district has increased by nearly 50, up to 777.

See REFERENDUM/ page 3 Referendum

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If the new referendum were to be rejected by voters, Parks said the likelihood of cutting programs would be “100 percent.”

During his monthly administrator’s report last week, Parks said the district is developing its messaging strategy about the referendum this month and plans to hold public outreach and question-and-answer sessions in September and October. He said this is the same model the district followed before the last referendum was passed in 2018.

“We can look at fine-tuning some things and answering questions people might have,” he said.

At the district’s annual meeting, also held on Aug. 13, electors in attendance approved a tentative property tax levy of $4.9 million for the 2024-2025 school year, but like every year, the final amount of taxes to be collected won’t be set until October, after the district determines its enrollment numbers, local property values and state aid amount.

Under the budget resolution adopted at the annual meeting, the district’s mil rate would increase from $8.42 per thousand dollars of equalized property value up to $8.55 per thousand. This would increase the district’s portion of a property tax bill by $13 on a $100,000 home, but Parks said property values in most local municipalities are projected to increase by 7 to 9 percent over last year, which will push the final mil rate down.

“The mil rate is not the biggest thing to use for comparison anymore, from my perspective, because the values right now are all over the board,” he said, noting that the total tax levy is what really determines how much taxpayers in each municipality will have to pay into the district.

Parks said the school board will consider several different budget scenarios in October when it votes to finalize the budget for the upcoming school year, but as of last week’s annual meeting, the total tax levy is projected to go up by nearly 1.9 percent (about $90,000).

“We’ve built this budget based on the potential of a positive referendum outcome,” he said. “We know in October that we’re actually going to have multiple budgets we have to consider.”

Other business

■ At the annual meeting, electors voted to increase school board salaries from $75 to $85 per meeting.

■ High school principal David Beranek said eight new students recently enrolled during the district’s annual registration day.

■ Max Wienke, principal of Marathon Area Elementary School and Marathon Venture Academy, reported that 22 new students are entering grades kindergarten through eighth, with only one of those open-enrolling in from outside the district. However, because last year’s eighth-grade class of almost 60 students has moved into high school and about 40 are entering 4-year-old kindergarten, the overall head count has dropped a little, he noted.

“We’re sitting at 499 as of today,” he said. “Last year, we were at 503.”

Wienke said this year’s eighth-grade class is sitting at 62 students, which are split into two sections.

“We’ve got 31 kids sitting in a room at the middle school, in the eighth-grade class,” he said.

In response to concerns raised by board member Lia Klumpyan, Wienke said he is working on possible solutions to alleviate the large class sizes.

“In my opinion, that’s not good for the teacher or the students,” she said.

■ Wienke told the board that five new teachers have been hired for the 2024-2025 school year, but a vacancy remains open for a middle school math teacher with just weeks to go before classes start. Wienke said his backup plan involves condensing the math period and having students work with a skilled math aide when they are not in front of a teacher. Looking ahead, he is hoping for a mid-year college graduate to become available and to possibly hire a longterm substitute.

Klumpyan said it’s frustrating to have a vacancy in this particular subject, since middle school math is one area where the district struggles.

Wienke said there simply aren’t enough applicants available when vacancies open up for certain positions.

“It’s hard to tell staff that we’re going into the year short. It’s hard to tell kids we’re going into the year short,” he said. “It’s taxing on everyone.”

■ Parks told the board that work on the district’s new outdoor classroom is nearing a stage of completion where it should be available for use by students this fall.

“We’re very, very close,” he said.