The Lena School District has been trying to save taxpayers money by underlevying as much as possible over the last three years, helping property owners to save almost $1.1 million in the process.
However, despite the best laid plans to conservatively spend and not demand as much money from taxpayers, the perfect storm put the district in a bind where it not only had to raise taxes again but also ask voters to approve a five-year operational referendum for $6 million over that period.
Superintendent Ben Pytleski said during a March 18 public presentation about the referendum the reason for the underlevying was to sell the proposed referendum for less of an impact. Unfortunately, several things happened for the current school year that turned the district’s plan on its head.
The five things impacting the 2025-26 school budget were:
• A huge drop in state aid for the district. Pytleski said the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction reduced Lena’s state aid by $200,000 this year, which totals $260,000 since 2022. Predicting the state aid amount the district receives is difficult, but Pytleski expects things to get worse.
• Lena has been experiencing declining enrollment, with 30 fewer students than five years ago. However, the student reduction is not focused on one or two grades, according to Pytleski, so the district must maintain its current staffing despite having fewer students to add to its student count and contribute to state aid.
• Despite having fewer students overall, Lena has had a large increase in high-need, high-cost special education students, requiring the district to increase spending on those students in the last five years. State law requires school districts to provide the services, so the district cannot make cuts there.
• Replacing the roof on the school building, which the district had planned to do a few years down the road, suddenly became a priority this year when leaks were discovered in critical areas. Pytleski said the Lena School Board approved $211,000 to start the work and expects to spend an additional $350,000 in the next five years.
• Inflation has affected the school district, with the district having to spend 20% more on things in the last five years.
Pytleski said that Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto three years ago that allowed school districts to have an increase annually in how much schools can tax residents has hurt districts like his in that school officials don’t want to squeeze money out of local taxpayers but instead receive adequate state aid. The state has given about $10,000 per student for 30 years, which was increased a few years ago to $11,000.
“Any drop in state aid means that we’re going to have to raise the local levy,” Pytleski said. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to tax our local people more. I want more state aid. What the governor’s veto did was basically say that, every year, we’re going to increase the revenue limit for the next 400 years. All that did was give school districts more authority to raise taxes locally. I don’t want that.”
Lena has a healthy fund balance of $2.5 million, which equates to about 30% of its annual expenses. However, it would not be enough to compensate the district’s $6 million in estimated shortfall in the next five years. Pytleski said that $1 million in cuts would need to take place in the next year if the referendum fails.
“Even with passing this referendum, we’re still going to have to cut back. We can’t continue to have the staffing that we have, because it’s not sustainable for the school district like this,” Pytleski said. “We’re going to be as smart as we can. We’re going to do it as smart as we can to not affect who we are, and who we are is a great school district with a lot of programs.”
Pytleski added that the district has five retirements coming up, and the district plans not to fill four of the positions.
Passing the referendum would result in a tax increase of about $120 per $100,000 of assessed value, with Pytleski noting that, if Lena had not underlevied, the new referendum would have added another $45 per $100,000 to tax bills. Currently, the tax rate is $6, so it would increase to $7.20 next year if the referendum passes.
“If we levied to the max with zero referendum support, our mill rate would have dropped to $4.07 this year,” Pytleski said. “I’m telling you now, from a property-poor school district like we are, that is not sustainable. Property-poor districts have higher mill rates.”
Lena has one big thing going for it. Its open enrollment numbers in, 87 students this year, are double the number going out, 43. Pytleski noted the downside is that Lena does not get the same amount of money for students coming here from outside communities like they do for students currently living in the district’s boundaries.
It’s a rarity for small school districts like Lena to have a positive open enrollment count, according to Pytleski.
“It seems like every few weeks, we get more kids coming in,” he said.
School district voters will cast their ballots April 7.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
Lena School District is seeking a $6 million referendum from voters April 7. A yes vote would allow the district to exceed its levy limit by $1 million for the 2026-27 school year and increase that by $100,000 annually until the 2030-31 school year, which could be exceeded by $1.4 million. (Lee Pulaski | NEW Media)
