Marathon School Board opts to levy additional dollars

Increases in state allows district to do so

After discussing its proposed budget ahead of its annual meeting in August, the Marathon School Board will be moving forward with the suggestion to levy an additional $220,000 for next year’s budget as the state budget currently includes additional aid for schools.

According to school district officials, the proposed state budget has a $325 per pupil increase included in it, which equates to around $220,000 for the Marathon School District with its projected enrollment for the 2023-24 school year at 675 students. However, that money is not simply given to schools by the state; districts have to opt to levy the additional amount from taxpayers.

During a special meeting last Wednesday, Marathon School Board members went over the proposed budget for next school year, ultimately deciding to put the scenario to levy the additional $220,000 into the draft budget. Board member Beth Seubert said state officials will tout the $325 per student increase, but that they’re not giving it directly to schools.

“They’re saying we can do it through our tax base and charge the community for it,” Seubert said. “Don’t you think every school is going to do that? Because they need that money… That’s the option they’re giving us to get more revenue.”

Within the proposed Marathon budget, which won’t be finalized until later this year as school districts have to wait for final aid amounts from the state and valuation numbers, the mill rate stands at $9.40, a slight increase from $8.98. The draft budget has the district’s fund balance at $2,643,471, with $687,483 of that slated to make up the deficit between the district’s Fund 10 revenues and expenditures. District Administrator Rick Parks explained how the district knew there would be a deficit coming, but due to changes such as federal funding adjustments, the district has postponed the anticipated shortfalls. When the district last went to referendum in 2018, it was anticipated that by 2021 the district’s funds would be even followed by two years of defi cits. However, it wasn’t until this past school year, which was year five following the referendum, that the district saw a deficiency in the budget.

School board officials have made comments at recent meetings about the potential need for a referendum in the coming years. Parks said this additional levy amount could cast the district forward another year before having to do so. As large grants, such as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Education Relief (ESSER) funds, are set to expire next year, area districts will be left trying to fill those gaps. There has also been talk about how state aid, even with a proposed increase this year, has not kept up with rising costs for schools.

In Marathon, the proposed additional $220,000 levied could help offset some salaries for positions funded by ESSER dollars in the past, according to Parks. Between the dean of students position, an elementary guidance counselor and the newly created associate principal job for Marathon Area Elementary School and Marathon Venture Academy, salaries and benefits for those staffers add up to almost $284,000. Parks said using the $220,000 to put toward those costs means not a lot of wiggle room left for the district to spend on other budget pieces that tend to go up each year.

“It doesn’t give us a lot of room for increase in food, fuel, other staff increases, benefits increases, all of those other types of things that go up as well,” Parks said.

The district has used defeasance in recent years to help pay off debt as bonds come due from the 2018 referendum. This has helped to steady the district’s mill rate and provide interest savings to taxpayers in the process. During the special meeting, there were some suggestions about how to potentially save in other ways, such as dropping from three sections to two for 5K classes, which would increase average class sizes from 14 to 21 students. Currently, with next year’s projected enrollment, there are only 42 students on the roster for the 5K class.

“We have three sections of 5K this year with about 13 in each one,” board member Lia Klumpyan said. “That hardly sustains three sections. We could drop that back to two and save a salary there. There’s variables out there that we just don’t know.”

The draft school district budget will be published in The Record-Review in the near future and voted on during the district’s annual meeting in August.

In other business during last week’s special meeting, the board approved a LED lighting proposal which will cost the district approximately $81,000 to do a retrofit bypass of the current structures in both buildings. After receiving a base bid that was approximately $26,000 higher, the district received the second quote from Szews Electric. According to Parks, the district plans to use up some maintenance budget funds from this past year to fund part of the project, with the rest coming from next year’s budget.

Parks told board members Szews Electric could complete the project by the start of the new school year and he anticipated the district would be getting a 25 percent rebate for changing fixtures to LED bulbs. The board’s vote to approve the bid is contingent on the confirmation that the bulbs have a 10year warranty. Parks estimated the energy payback on the project would be three to four years.