Annual meeting attendees approve 2021-22 Gillett schools budget

The Gillett Board of Education held its annual meeting to present its proposed budget to the public.

Treasurer Cliff Gerbers presented the 2021-22 budget to members of the audience, which included a budget of $10,069,342 — a 6.58% increase from last year.

“This is an increase from last year,” said Gerbers. “Part of that is from receiving ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) money, and we have to spend it.”

Gerbers walked through the 2021-22 budgeted expenses: with salaries accounting for 38.3%; purchased services accounting for 23.7%; benefits accounting for 16.8%; operating transfers accounting for 12.1%; supplies and equipment accounting for 7.4%; and debt and insurance accounting for 1.6%. The total budget expenses equal $8,395,722.

At the meeting, Gerbers also presented the tax levy for the district. With the general fund at $2,229,753, the non-referendum debt service fund at $731,826 and the community service fund at $45,000, the total school levy comes out to $3,006,579.
“This is a decrease of 6.25% based off of what happened a year ago,” said Gerbers.

Gillett’s school population currently sits at 527 students, which is up from last year’s count of 523.

The proposed tax rate for the school district is $9.11 per $1,000 of equalized value for the 2021-22 school year, which is below last year’s tax rate of $9.72 per $1,000. That means the owner of a home in the district valued at $100,000 would pay $911 in school taxes.

“It has changed over the years,” said Gerbers. “Some years we were well below the state average, and some years we were well above. All in all, I think we have been pretty good in maintaining our levy in reasonable rates.”

Gillett superintendent Todd Hencsik updated the public on the details of what the school has been doing since the last annual meeting.

“We are pleased to announce that this year’s proposed budget is a balanced budget,” said Hencsik. “In our continual mission to be good stewards of our taxpayers’ money, we are pleased to announce that we have put roughly $313,000 into fund 46, which is a long-term fund aimed at maintaining and improving our facility.”

Hencsik added that the school district does not tax their base to the limit.

“We are one of a handful of districts in the state that can boast this,” said Hencsik.

He said that as the last round of emergency ESSER funds comes in, it will come with stipulations.

“As we find out more of the specifics, we will allocate the COVID-19 funding to satisfy the federal requirements,” said Hencsik.

Gerbers also gave his treasurer’s report at the meeting.

“We have a fund balance of about $1.5 million,” said Gerbers. “While that sounds like a lot of money, our fund balance is 18%, our auditors tell us that we should be between 20-25%.”

The fund balance is used for cash flow, according to Gerbers.

“Our income does not always match up with our expenses,” said Gerbers. “The fund balance made it so that we didn’t have to borrow any money in the short term to meet our expenses.”