82-cent hike in Kettle Moraine School District tax bill
Big drop in state aid raises district tax rate
Dealt one of the largest reductions in state aid of almost any district in the state, while facing declining enrollment, lower property values and a reduced revenue limit, Kettle Moraine School District residents will see an increase in the tax rate of 82 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for the 2012-13 school year.
State aid is the lowest the district has seen since 1995-96, according to Chief Business Officer Susan Graham.
The district approved general fund expenditures of $45 million for 2012-13, up about 3.4 percent over the 2011-12 budget of $43.5 million. The increase in spending, coupled with a 15-percent decline in state aid shifted more of the burden onto taxpayers. The tax levy for 2012-13 is $33.6 million, up about 4.5 percent over the 2011-12 levy of $32.1 million.
Additionally, a nearly 4-percent reduction in property values coupled with the increase in the tax levy, leaves taxpayers with a tax rate 82 cents higher per $1,000 of assessed value than last year. The 2012-13 tax rate is $10.22 per $1,000, which is 8.7 percent higher than the 2011-12 tax rate of $9.40 per $1,000.
"Operationally, the budget has remained unchanged for the past six years," Graham said. "We're constantly trying to outperform our budget."
The budget was balanced through realigning resources to support the district vision of learning without boundaries, changes to insurance plan designs and bidding out health, dental, life and disability insurance. The final levy figures were only about $3,000 more than what was presented at the annual meeting, Graham added.
According to Graham, the impact on property taxes will depend on the assessed values placed on homes. If the value remains unchanged, a home valued at $350,000 will receive a potential tax increase of $357, while if the same home's value drops by nearly 4-percent the potential tax increase would be $220 per $1,000 of value.
"One would assume that since the equalized value came in reduced, so would some of the property values, but not necessarily at the same rate," Graham explained.
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21 Comments
The Opinionater - Nov 01, 2012 2:44 PM
who was the KMSD representative on the county TIF Review Board? Is it possible
her approval was biased toward a residential TIF? More customers for the chamber
more students for the school district? Too bad any tax relief on 8.5 million dollars
worth of property would have provided for district tax payers is now delayed for the
life of the TIF. Count the years my friends.
Mucho - Nov 01, 2012 3:10 PM
So let me get this straight: State aid does not come from taxpayers?
How about reporting the basic fact that the School District is spending more local taxpayer money and less State taxpayer money. It seems fair that if my local school board spends more that someone in Rhinelander should not have to pay for it and vice versa.
The real question is why does lower enrollment result in higher costs? Fewer students don't demand more classrooms, teachers, books, computers, buses...
Sawzall - Nov 01, 2012 3:30 PM
Mucho - Nov 01, 2012 4:30 PM
Either way - keep school spending as local as possible. The less the state has to redistribute the better.
The Opinionater - Nov 01, 2012 6:03 PM
left pocket or my right pocket? The "spending" would always be "local". The question
is why would you block or delay any relief? Do you think KSMD is spending it's own
money?
The Opinionater - Nov 01, 2012 6:03 PM
left pocket or my right pocket? The "spending" would always be "local". The question
is why would you block or delay any relief? Do you think KSMD is spending it's own
money?
Mucho - Nov 02, 2012 10:09 AM
Remember - KMSD already spent the $100. Do you want that $100 to cost you $178 or $100?
The Opinionater - Nov 02, 2012 8:42 PM
check for both no matter how they divide it or spend it. Back to my original point.
The state does not vote for TIFS that delay or block immediate relief of the check
total- KMSD did.
WizerthnUUU - Nov 03, 2012 11:40 PM
needed to cut the pension and medical plans of the teachers. Were we sold a bill of
goods? Boy, I sure hope Romney keeps his word. I need my taxes to go down so I
can save to pay for my medicare charges above my voucher limit in 12 years. Oh,
I'm sure taxes will go down, Romney wouldn't change his mind.
Mucho - Nov 05, 2012 9:11 AM
Eureka! You get it.
Mucho - Nov 05, 2012 12:42 PM
Read up on Evers' budget request and how he proposed "Fair Funding" via redistribution and get back to the class with your report. Local accountability is key to cutting waste.
http://dpi.wi.gov/fairfunding/
Mucho - Nov 06, 2012 10:18 AM
I approximated but came really close. Milwaukee County gets 2X the per pupil State and Federal Aid than Wauk County at 65% of its per pupil costs are from our income tax dollars vs. property tax dollars. 78% is likely dead on for a direct comparison of MPS vs. KMSD after you take out the non-MPS MKE county schools and the non-KMSD Wauk county schools.
Why localize school funding? MPS gave their teachers a compensation raise from $101,000 per year to $106,000 per year average this year while KMSD teachers complied with Act 10 and accepted a decrease. MPS has over $370,000,000 in long term debt that KMSD residents are helping to foot the bill for. MPS students have a 45% truancy rate while KMSD has 0.5% truancy rate.
For every dollar that Waukesha County residents get taxed on their income, they get back 34 cents and MPS gets 66 cents (not all for education but a lot for raises for 6 figure salaried techers and payments toward the interest on $370mm in debt).
You can validate the sources for yourself. These facts don't come from today's Leftie "talking points" or angry white guy "hate radio" but from a broke middle class taxpayer that pays for an MPS school system that not only my kids don't attend but the MPS kids don't either (45% truancy rate):
http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/pdfs/2011SchoolingReport.pdf
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/mps-perpupil-spending-4th-highest-in-us-1u5rurq-159889555.html
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/mps-perpupil-spending-4th-highest-in-us-1u5rurq-159889555.html
Sawzall - Nov 07, 2012 10:58 AM
total budget is, indeed, higher. What made it higher is the increased payments
for retirement (I'm assuming this is because of the payout given when the KMSD
local retirement benefits were eliminated). With those benefits gone, things will
get cheaper in that area from now on.
Either way, you were asking how less students could cost more, and this does
happen. The reason is because fixed costs don't depend on the number of
students, and in most cases the cost of everything is going up. No matter how
many students are in a building, you still have to heat it, plow snow, keep lights
on, etc., until the number of students in the building is zero. When enrollment
declines by 30 students you can't just elimate a classroom and a teacher because
those 30 students are usually spread out across 13 grades. Same goes for bus
routes. Those 30 students are spread across numerous bus routes, if they even
rode a bus at all. Unfortunately, things are never as simple as people would like
to believe them to be.
WoodStok - Nov 08, 2012 2:54 PM
Sawzall - Nov 12, 2012 12:09 PM
aneuhauser - Nov 14, 2012 1:33 AM
Sawzall - Nov 15, 2012 8:15 AM
The DPI website has spreadsheets for each district showing how revenue limit and state aid is calculated for each district. Check them out. You will be shocked at how complicated it is. It doesn't look like the new ones are out yet, but you can see the past 19 years all the way back to when revenue limits were created in 1993.