State senator meets with district administrator

WAUPACA – State Senator Rachael Cabral-Guevara met with the Waupaca school district administrator to discuss school finance and the upcoming referendum.
Cabral-Guevara has been meeting with local districts to discuss needs and funding, with a recent trip to the Appleton School District followed by a trip to Waupaca.
Mark Flaten, the district administrator, said Cabral-Guevara asked several times if the two districts had collaborated on their presentations or if the slides were from the Department of Public Instruction, with both answers being no.
Flaten said the facts are the facts, as school funding has been trending further in the direction of local funding from the school districts themselves.
The April 7 ballot in Waupaca will include an operational referendum to fund the district $2.75 million dollar for two years.

The decision to go to referendum came after it was found that there was a shortfall in the current school years budget that amounted to a little over $1.5 million dollars.
Austin Moore, business director for the district, said for the 2024/2025 school year the state budget funded education with 50 percent coming from the state and 50 percent coming from local taxes.
This year it was decided at the state level that 57 percent would come from local taxes, while only 43 percent would come from state aid.
The decrease in state aid has led to an increase of districts going to referendum, with 170 referendums passing in 2024 and an additional 72 districts going to referendum for the spring election, this is out of 421 total school districts in the state.
Outside of the funding percentages, another aspect that is impacting district funding is the funding of the school voucher system, where money is allocated away from public school and goes to a private school.
Flaten said about 10 percent of local tax dollars is given to private schools.
When a family decides to send their child to an alternate public school or private school the money allocated to educate that child would go along with them.
For the 2025-2026 school year that amounted to $1.55 million dollars, which is also the amount of the shortfall reported last fall by the school district.
This led to an increase in the mill rate to $5.35.
Flaten stressed the importance of maintaining relationships with state congressional figures.
“That’s the second time she has been in our district, I think building those relationships is vital to the health of education,” Flaten said. “Let’s face it, they are elected officials who are expected to know everything about everything and that’s not reality, I am glad she is able to engage with us on conversations.”
The last chance to join the operational referendum informational session will be March 31 at 5:30 p.m. and it will be located at the Waupaca High School, E2325 King Road.