PW-S District to ask for less amid city tax rate concerns
Not willing to gamble on a narrow approval margin predicted by a recent survey at a time when residents are concerned about a significant increase in city taxes, a Port Washington-Saukville School Board committee on Monday recommended cutting $7.3 million from its $66.7 million proposed referendum and putting a $59.4 million question on the April ballot.
The recommendation comes after a survey presented to the board last week concluded that 51.5% of voters would support a $66.7 million referendum.
While the survey predicted a 1.5% approval margin, the margin of error was plus or minus 2.26%.
“You certainly have support to put something on the ballot,” Rob DeMeuse, vice president of research for School Perceptions, the educational research firm in Slinger that conduced the October survey, told the board last week.
“At this point, I think the board’s homework is, do we feel good about where it (the cost) is — that margin of error does make it very close — or do we trim it back a little bit and think about the tax impact?”
The Finance and Human Resources Committee, whose meeting Monday was attended by the full board, chose the latter.
While a $66.7 million referendum would have increased the school tax rate by 36 cents per $1,000 of equalized value, an amount that would cost the owner of a $300,000 home an additional $108 a year, the rate increase would drop to 26 cents for an additional $78 in taxes annually under the $59.4 million plan.
“This takes it (the tax bill increase) under $100 for a $300,000 home,” Supt. Michael McMahon said. “We’re listening to our community by reducing the tax impact.”
The School Board is scheduled to act on the recommendation and a referendum question to be put on the April ballot when it meets on Monday, Dec. 16.
The district wants to build a new Saukville Elementary School on a new site for $45.8 million and had planned to spend $20.9 million on major maintenance projects at its other schools to address heating and cooling systems, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and security as well as window and roof replacement, new playgrounds and emergency generators.
Now, however, the district has proposed reducing maintenance spending at Thomas Jefferson Middle School by $7.3 million, a move that officials said makes sense because the school is slated for major renovations or replacement in the relatively near future. The only work that would be done at the middle school under the new plan is the replacement of its roof, which has been blamed for recent flooding. The reduction of the referendum amount to $59.4 million is an effort to solidify support for the district’s priority — a new building to replace the nearly 70-year-old Saukville Elementary School.
“We’re not going to give up on Saukville as our priority by asking for the $66.7 million,” McMahon said.
The new spending plan was motivated in part by comments on the survey that indicate City of Port Washington residents, who constitute the majority of School District residents, are concerned about the amount of a school tax hike because city taxes are slated to increase by a far greater amount.
“There were definitely comments expressing that concern, especially after Ozaukee Press reported the tax impact of the city spending,” McMahon said.
Tax bills mailed earlier this month include a city increase of $383 for the owner of a home and property with an assessed value of $300,000 to pay for the hiring of additional paramedics — a reflection of a levy increase approved by voters in an April referendum — and a portion of the $33.5 million the city plans to spend on a safety building to house the fire and police departments. Next year, city tax bills are expected to increase by an additional $574 for a $300,000 home to pay for the safety building alone.
“A safety building that, by the way, the city does not have to go to referendum for,” School Board member Karen Krainz said.
Unlike school districts, which by law must pass referendums before they can borrow more than $1 million, municipalities do not need voter approval and the city does not plan to seek it before borrowing for the safety building.
Board member Elisa Pionek said the impact the School District referendum would have on taxes pales in comparison to the increase the city has already delivered and the even larger one it plans next year.
“We’re a heck of a bargain,” she said. “We’re 14% of the cost of the safety building” in terms of tax bill impact.
Some board members, however, said they are concerned by the misconception that because the School District plans to ask for more money than the safety building is estimated to cost, the school plan will have a greater impact on taxpayers when, in fact, the opposite is true.
That is because the tax impact of the School District’s plan to borrow $59.4 million would be offset by an adjustment made to payments it’s making on debt incurred after voters approved a $49.4 million referendum in 2015. Because the district has been paying more debt than it needs to annually, or pre-paying, it could reduce those payments and redirect some of that money to the new debt.
Presuming the School Board approves a referendum question next week, the district’s focus will shift toward informing voters of the need for districtwide maintenance and, in particular, a new Saukville Elementary School.
In addition to being the district’s oldest elementary school, the Saukville building, which last underwent a major renovation in 1989, is in a floodplain and flanked by wetlands, which is why the district intends to build on a new site.
McMahon said the district has narrowed the six sites it initially identified for the new school to three, all of which are in Saukville. The district plans to announce the site before April.
School officials have also said that a new elementary school would position the district to accommodate an enrollment increase predicted by a study the district recently did in conjunction with an area real estate firm. The district’s enrollment is currently declining.
But board member Brian Stevens questioned those projections as well as the wisdom of spending $45.8 million on a new school to accommodate additional students that may not come to the district, saying that while the school needs maintenance work it remains functional.
Some administrators took issue with that assessment.
“We cannot sustain that building any longer with the equipment that is there,” Director of Business Services and Human Resources Mel Nettesheim said.
Brian Sutton, the district’s director of student services, said, “I would not describe that building as functional from a special-ed standpoint.”
School officials seem to be increasingly concerned that the so-called open-concept school, which does not have traditional classrooms, although dividers have been used as makeshift walls over the years, is contributing to the challenges there. Saukville Elementary School’s state report card scores are considerably lower than those of its counterparts in the district and significantly more students open enroll out of the school than they do from either Dunwiddie or Lincoln elementary schools.
“I’ve heard from so many parents that they would never send their kids there because of the open concept,” Stephanie Trigsted, who represents the Village of Saukville on the board, said.
School officials said that the proposed referendum, as well as future plans to either renovate or replace the middle school and possibly build a new swimming pool at Port Washington High School, will address deferred maintenance, and once the district is caught up, it will usher in a new era of saving for maintenance projects.
“This referendum would help get us back on track,” Nettesheim said.
The district plans to increase the amount of money it saves for maintenance by “right-sizing” its staff, which has increased in size even as enrollment has shrunk.
“We’re not going to ask this community to pay for deferred maintenance in the future,” McMahon said. “We’re not going to just pass a referendum. We’re going to right-size our staff for savings going forward.”
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