Oconto Falls superintendent grateful for community support

Lena and Oconto voters also approved referendum questions
By: 
Warren Bluhm
Editor-in-chief

A grateful Oconto Falls school superintendent thanked the community for its support in this month’s referendum during the school board’s regular monthly meeting April 12.

“This will enable our school district to maintain effective programs and services in the future,” Superintendent Dean Hess said. “It’s going to provide opportunities for course offerings to be expanded in the future. We’ll be able to ensure our staff compensation is competitive with our neighboring school districts, and also be able to address both physical and cyber security in the future.”

Voters on April 6 approved a measure extending a 2016 referendum approval that enables the district to exceed state-imposed revenue limits. The referendum would begin at $3.3 million in 2022 and then increase by $275,000 per year until stabilizing at $4.4 million in 2025.

The plan was designed to coincide with the payoff of existing debt so that property taxes would increase by about $17 for every $100,000 of assessed property value in 2021. They would then decrease by $107 in 2022, by $92 in 2023, by $40 in 2024 and by $11 in 2025, Hess said in a series of messages to the community in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Just under 52% of voters approved the proposal, a margin of 1,189 “yes” votes to 1,104 opposed.

The successful referendum allows the district to avoid “massive reductions” in staff, programs and services, Hess said.

“I’m not sure that was fully understood,” he said. “This wasn’t about expanding; to a huge extent this was about maintaining the good work that’s been happening.”

“I hope that our families and our taxpayers know that we will continue to be extremely thoughtful on how we invest their tax dollars in order to maintain high-quality programming and be conscious of the fact that everyone works extremely hard in order to support public education in our community.”

The Oconto Falls vote was one of three successful referendum initiatives by Oconto County school districts this month.

Lena voters gave the school district permission to exceed state-imposed revenue limits by $750,000 in 2021-22, $800,000 in 2022-23, $850,000 in 2023-24, $900,000 in 2024-25 and $950,000 in 2025-26.

The financial plan was structured so that projected mill rates will remain stable and actually decrease slightly. The current mill rate is $10.41 per $1,000 of equalized valuation. Baird, a financial services firm utilized by the district, is forecasting mill rates of $10.33 in 2021-22, $9.59 in 2022-23, $9.79 in 2023-24, $10.39 in 2024-25 and $10.46 in 2025-26.

More than 57% percent of Lena district voters approved the question, a margin of 320 yes votes and 238 no.

In Oconto, voters approved borrowing $13 million for improvements to the three school buildings as well as a revenue increase of $800,000 per year for the next five years.