School taxes will increase if nothing changes

NEW LONDON – If nothing changes between now and when the next school budget is assembled, residents of the New London School District can expect to pay more in school taxes when the next school budget is passed.
That was the message Joe Marquardt, SDNL business services director, told the New London Board of Education at its June 10 meeting. He added that the changes need to come in the form of passed legislation by state legislators regarding school funding.
Marquardt said that the Wisconsin legislature had recently discussed distributing some of the state’s surplus funds towards categorical aid funding and equalization aid, but legislation regarding that did not pass.
School districts rely on those revenue enhancements, Marquardt said.
“This year our taxes went up by 12% in New London because there was no increase in the equalization aid formula, and all the revenue increase of $325 (per student) went on taxpayers, plus the increase to the school voucher program that we passed along was also on top of that,” Marquardt said. “So, next year, that will happen again unless the state decides to go back again and try to identify ways to mitigate equalization aid.”

Marquardt said it’s “hard not to be frustrated.”
“It does hurt the school district’s budget, and it hurts our taxpayers,” Marquardt said. “Whether you say it’s political or not, it appears to be political. But we live in that environment, so our job is to respond to that.”
If the legislation was approved, Marquardt said the equalization aid would have had an 8% reduction on the district’s levy.
Since that legislation did not pass, Marquardt said the district’s levy will increase in the next school budget.
“I just want to put it out there that it’s not going to be specific to board action,” Marquardt said. “That happened last year too, the district didn’t have a significant increase in spending, I believe it was like 1.7%, but the levy went up 12% because of some of the variables you can’t control as a board.”
Board President John Heideman said it is frustrating, “the total level of disfunction that’s happening in Madison.”
“Over 20 (legislation) bills were put to (Wisconsin Governor Tony) Evers’ desk related to education last year that he vetoed,” Heideman said. “It’s easy to point fingers back and forth, but at a certain point, there’s no one on either side of the aisle to trust or to work (with) because of past experiences. And when there’s some reasonable legislation that gets to his desk and he still vetoes it out of politics, it’s understandable that this happens because this back and forth. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. And we’re the ones that are going to pay the price on that.”
Marquardt added, “The message is correct right now. We could honestly say, unless something changes, people’s taxes will go up in the next school year.”