Gilman projects drop in school district tax rate

Emily Gojmerac

Rep orter

Gilman residents should see a difference in their tax rate of $2.35 per $1,000 property value from last year.

On Monday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Walter Leipart proposed the 2022-2023 budget to the rest of the board.

For the 2022-2023 school year, Gilman is projecting a balanced budget with a $4,163.39 surplus, which will give them some breathing room for extra funds if needed. Towards the end of the school year a discussion happens about what to do with the surplus if there are funds left over. These funds typically go into their Capital Improvement project, which is a renovation fund that is only used when needed.

The revenue limit, which is revenue from state aid and local property taxes is $4,440,235, which is a reduction of $147,861 compared to last year. Local property taxes decreased by $400,000 due to an increase in state aid and a decline in base membership so the base membership was 344 students. This year they anticipate that number to be 330 students, the previous year, the base was 260 with no increase in revenue limit per student.

With the combination of no revenue limit increase and an increase in state aid results in a projected tax levy of $8.30, which is a decrease of $2.35 from 20212022 school year.

Leipart said “Our levy last year was $10.65 when we went to referendum, we actually asked for $50,000 more on this referendum than our previous referendum and we are still able to decrease the mill rate by $2.35. The levy is based on a per $1,000 of equalized value of a piece of property.”

The entire district recently went through a re-evaluation of taxes so the equalized value that was thought to be $261 million dollars is actually $288 million dollars. The increase of $20 million dollars gets divided by the total number of students. Even with the increase of $253,000 increase in state aid, if the property tax valuations had been lower, the state aid still would have been more because of the number of students. State aid is based on need, and gets determined by your evaluation, divided by the number of students in your district so when enrollment for Gilman declined, state aid increased.

School board President Bruce Ewings Sr. said “It may be that your city or county raised your taxes, so your taxes went up even though the school taxes might not.”

In other business:

  The board approved to include three additional doors to be accessed through the keyless access system to increase security throughout the building.

  Lacy Repinski, Ericka Bertsinger, and Dana Bradley have been hired as full-time Special Education Paraprofessionals, while Brittany Rosemeyer is hired as part-time Special Education Paraprofessionals.

  Bobbi Elliot has been hired as a Kitchen Aide.

  Kayla Symanski resigned her position as Paraprofessional and Candice Grunseth resigned as JV Girls Basketball Coach.

  There is ongoing recruitment within the district for a Special Education Teacher due to the increase of ten students with Individualized Education Plans (I.E.P.s).

  They are also recruiting for a Middle School Language Arts Teacher and also JV Boys and JV Girls Basketball coaches.

  The annual meeting is scheduled for October 3, at 7 p.m.