With a looming $3.5 million budget shortfall expected in the next year, the Monona Grove School District board has begun discussing the possibility of an April 2023 referendum.
This year, the district had a $845,000 structural deficit, but used a portion of its fund balance in addition to $2.7 million in one-time federal funding granted to school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic to make ends meet.
Superintendent Dan Olson credits the shortfall to a lack of increase in per pupil spending limits by the state legislature and rising costs.
“The legislature did actually increase state aid, but we weren’t able to increase how much of that our revenue for the district so really it’s property tax relief, but it was not spendable dollars for school districts,” Olson said.
Gov. Tony Evers has previously proposed increases in per pupil funding in past biennial budgets and said he plans to do so again: $350 per pupil the first year, 2023-23, and $650 the second year, 2024-25. While Olson doubts the legislature would approve Evers’ budget as presented, the district ran the numbers of a few possible scenarios.
“We did run a couple of different scenarios, starting with ‘what if we don’t get any increase again, to what if we do get a fairly substantial increase, close to what the Governor proposed,’ and even under both scenarios, we still have a significant deficit,” Olson said.
Without any increases, the district could face a $6.7 million deficit for the 2023-24 budget and $9.5 million in 2024-25. With increases of $300 the first year and $600 the second year, near what the governor said he would propose, the district would still face a $5.7 million deficit in 2023-24 and a $6.7 million deficit in 2024-25.
The district is two years into a three year $3.7 million referendum, which was passed in 2020, which prompted the district to hold off on a referendum this fall. There have also been cost saving measures taken in this year’s budget, such as increasing health insurance deductibles and adding energy efficiency capital projects like the solar project at the high school.
“But, the board will be having some real serious conversations about potentially looking at this next election in April, because part of the challenge is there’s not a fall election next November. And so the choices are this April or waiting a whole another year following April and, you know, so and that’s a real difficult place to be,“ Olson said.
