The 2016 WGSD Annual Meeting will be held on Monday, October 17th, at 6:00 PM in the Evergreen Elementary Multi-Media Area. This is the only public meeting scheduled for Monday night. To view the agenda go to this WGSD Board Docs link, or scroll to the bottom of this post.
Who can attend? Who runs it? What do we vote on?
Anyone who is eligible to vote in WGSD school board elections is eligible to vote at the WGSD Annual Meeting. After introductions by Dawn Bleimehl, WGSD School Board President, there will be a report on school performance from Sloan Allen, Director of Curriculum and Student growth. Following this report the electors (those eligible to vote) will select a person from the community to “chair” the remaining portions of the meeting. Once a meeting chair has been selected, the electors will review the meeting minutes from the previous year.
The main event at the annual meeting comes next, where we will view a budget presentation from Ed Brzinski, WGSD Superintendent. After the presentation, residents will be able to ask questions about the school budget. Typical action items are as follows:
- Approve the school budget and adopt the school district tax levy
- Establish the salaries of school board members
- New Business
- Set the date for the next annual meeting
Some Budget Highlights
- Brzinski Proposes NO Increase in School Tax Levy for 2016-17: At the October 2016 Personnel and Finance Committee meeting Ed Brzinski, WGSD District Administrator, shared a proposed budget for 2016-17. The budget proposes NO increase in the school tax levy. This will likely be the third straight year for the Waterford Graded School District with either a tax levy freeze or decrease.
- State Aid Increase due to Increased Enrollment: As a result of gaining 95 four-year-old-kindergarten (4K) students last year (2015-16), the district’s enrollment increased for the first time in 6 years. The 95 part-time 4K students equated to 57 full-time students and helped offset what would have been a loss of 22 students in grades K-8. Without last year’s 4K program, state aid would have been reduced by $250,000 this year, instead of increasing by $450,000. As a result, the increase in state aid attributed to our new 4K program is $700,000. Read more about the impact of 4K here.
- Per-Member Increase: The state budget froze the per-member increase for the second year in a row.
- Special Education: As a result of changes in state law and student needs, the district has increased the budgeted expenses by $290,000 over the previous year.
- Health Insurance Renewal: This year the health insurance renewal originally came in at 4.0%. After requests were made to see the data on how much money the insurance company had paid out, it was realized that the loss ratio for the previous 16 months was tracking at less than 80% (the insurance company had paid out less than 80 cents for each dollar of premium collected from the district). As a result, the insurance company was informed the renewal was unacceptable. After discussions with the insurance company the renewal was reduced to 0%.
- School Lunch: The school lunch program has cost the district between $20,000 and $60,000 each of the last two years. This year the program is expected to generate a surplus.
- Other Items: A new phone system was installed district wide late this summer, there will be increased staff training and materials related to ALiCE Training and STEM/PLTW, and more. Hope to see you there!
Posted by Matt Kranich on 10/13/2016
WGSD Parent and School Board Member
References:
2016 Annual Meeting Agenda
2016 Budget Proposed by Administration at October 10th Committee Meeting