Following a 1.5-hour presentation on the challenges facing the Prescott School District, the district’s tax levy was approved at its annual meeting Wednesday, Sept. 18.

The district levy is set at $10,530,240, up 1.73 percent from last year’s figure of $10,350,998. That levy is comprised of budgeted expenses of $6,175,944 in the general fund, $3,740,913 in the referendum debt service fund, $388,383 in the non-referendum debt service fund and $225,000 in the community service fund.

School officials predicted numbers will fluctuate slightly as final enrollment counts are tallied, though the prediction is for Prescott’s preliminary enrollment of 1,300 students to be down from a year ago, which hits the district’s bottom line in less per pupil state aid.

Prescott has long strived to do more with less, as school district officials lamented the fact that Prescott gets less per pupil ($11,074) than nearby districts like Hudson ($12,348) and Amery ($11,499).

“Despite the financial inequity, PSD is the highest academic performing district in the MBC and outperforms Hudson and river Falls on the Wisconsin Forward Exam,” information disseminated at the annual meeting states.

After a very close failed referendum vote in the spring, another key budgetary component for the district is going to be going back to voters in the November election to seek permission for a recurring referendum in the amount of $1.2 million annually to help the district invest in staff, educational programming for early literacy and match curriculum, staff resources and training, reinstate athletic and extracurricular programs that were cut because of budget constraints and to pay for rising facility operational costs.

The starting teacher at Prescott has an average salary of $43,000 annually, compared to a Middle Border Conference average of $45,019. The average River Falls teacher starts at $47,323.

Community members can learn more about the referendum at meetings in the coming weeks, the first of which was held Tuesday in Clifton Township. Another is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at Prescott City Hall with the final one slated for Monday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. at the Oak Grove Town Hall.

Annual meeting

Board president Mike Matzek accepted his annual procedural nomination to chair the meeting.

After dispatching with last year’s meeting minutes, Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza turned attention toward the state of the district.

“Basically, I wanted to remind everybody of why we exist,” he said. “We always articulate strong schools with strong communities and strong communities support schools.”

He said the district has worked diligently despite difficult budgets to do an excellent job educating students.

“We want to make sure that some of the logistics and financial stuff never interferes with why we are here each and every day,” he said. “We’ve talked about how we build budgets to make sure that we support these programs, and in reverse, when we did not pass an operating levy in April, we made sure that when we made cuts, we kept them as far asway as we could from the classroom. But that’s becoming more and more of a challenge.”

Spicuzza pointed out that because of lagging state funding in Wisconsin, 87 percent of all districts have had to seek referendum support.

“87 percent of the 420 districts, that is a sign of a broken system,” he said. “Our children don’t have time to wait for state policy makers to fix the school funding system. By putting the need for students first, we’re investing in their potential, the future of our whole community.”

New Finance Coordinator Cara Klatt went over specifics in the overall budget. They property tax levy is just a portion of the school funding. Overall general fund expenditures in the budget, which must be finalized in October, are $17,060,039, down from last year’s figure of $17,617,689.09.

While the district produced a balanced budget at the meeting for the 2024-25 school year, school officials are hopeful that they’ll be allocated additional funding from voters next month.

“We have a balanced budget, but as I mentioned, it’s about survival of Prescott Public Schools, and it’s about the challenges and the choices that the board has made up to this point,” said Spicuzza. “Ultimately, it’s a choice of what does the Prescott community, school district community and our five municipalities envision, of what kind of school system do they want for the next decade?”

The levy was unanimously approved by residents at the meeting as presented.

However, if the referendum passes, it will put a little more money on the tax rate when tax bills are figured. District figures show an increase of $41 per $100,000 of property valuation.

“We made cuts since April 2. Ultimately, now the choice is going to be on our community,” said Spicuzza.