Two Oconto County school districts are making drastic cuts to their budgets after voters turned down operational referenda earlier this year.
Gillett School District is looking at trimming back its prekindergarten programs as part of its savings. The 3-year-old kindergarten program, for which schools receive no state funding, costs the district around $100,000 annually, according to Superintendent Nathan Hanson.
The Gillett School Board has approved a plan that will grandfather in current applicants to the 3K program, Hanson said, but it’s likely the district will have to charge parents a fee in the future to keep the program running. He noted the fee wouldn’t completely cover the program costs, but it would be enough to keep the district from reducing funds for other grades to keep 3K alive.
Hanson said the district has also decided not to fill a vacant teaching post for 4-year-old kindergarten, and the remaining teacher will be responsible for all of the students, no matter how high the count gets. That will save the district about $80,000 in salary and benefits, he said.
Other cost savings include restructuring its insurance offerings, which Hanson said will save the district another $80,000, and no longer paying for high school students to take college courses beyond what the state requires, which could bring an additional $35,000 in savings.
“The school board very much believes that, in the past, we’ve cut significant amounts of things,” Hanson said. “We’re at a point where further cuts would be 40 kids to a classroom or cutting our extracurricular and elective classes.”
With more than $300,000 in cuts expected for the 2026-27 academic year, Hanson hopes it will be enough to get Gillett through another school term.
“All told, we have cut around $313,000 plus any revenue we receive from 3K parents once the board sets the cutoff date for this,” he said. “We will have an additional savings to taxpayers in the 2027-28 school of offsetting 3K costs with tuition from parents. Though it is important to note that 3K funding takes place out of Fund 80, which is not the fund we are experiencing a deficit in, which is Fund 10. Fund 80 funds cannot be used to address Fund 10, though it will be a direct savings to taxpayers.”
In the Lena Public School District, approval has been given to reduce next year’s budget by $935,000.
According to Superintendent Ben Pytleski, three retiring teacher positions will not be refilled. The district is also not replacing the departing middle/high school principal, and Pytleski will perform double duty in that position. The district also reduced all of its full-time classroom aides to part-time.
Pytleski said taking these steps should minimize reductions in offerings and programs for students.
“The Lena Public School District has made some very difficult decisions to reduce our budget for the 2026-27 school year,” Pytleski said. “Our goal was to do all we could do to not affect programs and offerings for our students. We rely on our strong open enrollment numbers, and those numbers would likely see a decrease if we were to cut programs and offerings.
“These were very difficult decisions, and none of these decisions were made lightly. We are expecting that the $935,000 in cuts will be enough for this next school year, but we won’t know that for sure until we see exactly what we will be receiving in revenue. We are still hoping for an increase in special education funding. We will need to put off some important maintenance projects for the time being.”
Lena is not in a position where it will need to do any short-term borrowing, according to Pytleski. Some school districts borrow for a couple of months while they wait for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to provide state aid payments intermittently during the school year.
“For now, we are still in a position where we do not need to short-term borrow to meet our obligations,” he said. “It remains unclear how long this will be the case.”
Gillett has not done any borrowing yet, according to Hanson, but it’s possible that such a step might be necessary within a year or two. He noted that his district has been spending its fund balance to keep budgets in the black.
Short-term borrowing is not uncommon with Wisconsin schools, Hanson said, noting that about 31% of school districts have to do that. He said the district took out a line of credit two years ago but, so far, has not had to use it.
“A lot of schools in this area have had to do that,” Hanson said. “Voters don’t want schools to carry a large fund balance, and so sometimes school districts get to the point where they have to short-term borrow to make payroll and stuff like that.”
Pytleski said asking voters for another kick at the can is not currently on the table.
“We do not have any intentions of going back to the voters in November,” he said. “It is too early to know where our revenues will be, if our budget reduction measures will be enough and how much our expenses of daily operations will continue to increase.”
Hanson, however, said that Gillett plans to ask district voters to reconsider in November, as more voters tend to come out for gubernatorial and presidential elections. That should give the district a clear gauge on whether voters would support paying more in taxes, he said.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
