By Brook D. Curtiss
Publisher
Wakefield Community Schools will be tightening its belt this year as the 2024-25 tax request and budget season have begun, and residents of the community and district have already made their voices heard about this year’s taxes.
“Essentially, I think the hearing system worked,” said Superintendent Matt Farup. “We heard from constituents and the Board adjusted.”
A number of those constituents attend the Board of Education meeting on Monday, Sept. 16, and started the discussion with the Board about the, at that time, current tax request.
This year’s valuation for the school took an 11% increase, adding $68 million to the tax roll for the school to draw from. In 2023-24 the school district was valued at $620 million, and this year it was $688 million.
Last year’s (23-24) tax rate was dropped lower than the 2022-23 year, because of additional funding from a new state program last year, which moved the levy from $1.01 to $.76.
The first draft of the school’s budget for the year, requested an increase in the actual/estimated disbursements from $10.5 million to $12.9 million.
With the additional valuation increase of 11%, the tax request rate of $.76 would have dropped to $.68 had the expenses remained the same, however with the addition of the $2.4 million in disbursements, the school had originally requested a tax rate of $.942434, an increase of 24%.
Built into that original request was a 26% increase in the general fund, and an 8% increase in the special building fund.
But – following the Monday Board of Education meeting, the Board relented on the tax request, and significantly lowered the 2024-25 figures for the year.
Wednesday evening, Superintendent Matt Farup also represented the school at the “joint public hearing” at the Wayne County Courthouse. Taxpayers should have received a pink postcard with the estimated changes listed.
Though requested the last few years, because Wakefield Community Schools resides in Wayne County, the Wayne County Clerk made notice of the meeting in the Wayne newspaper only, and did not send it to the Republican.
The current tax request, set for public hearing on Monday, Sept. 23, and listed in this week’s Republican, shows a 6% increase in tax rate, after scaling down a number of the budget figures.
The operating budget remained at $10.1 million, but the property tax request was lowered from $6.06 million to $5.5 million – meaning the school will be dipping into savings to make up the shortfall.
The newest version of the budget also nearly entirely clears the special building fund, dropping the request from $423,000 to $68,808 – an 82% drop in what was originally requested.
“The short answer is the original proposal was to make up for lost state and federal aid and try to save some money for the future,” said Superintendent Farup. “We thought to put some money into the special building fund to answer a facility need. Not all of them, of course, but something like getting class space to get rid of the portables…” or other expenses in a piecemeal fashion that the recent bond that voters rejected was set to help address.
According to the 2024-25 state aid certification report, the District’s needs this year are $9.1 million, just to cover basic expenses like staffing, lunches, and utilities (among other things), but the District’s resources are only enough to cover $7.9 million, leaving a rather stark shortfall in the funding, which will be made up by state aid this year, which was estimated in February to be less than last year, or just more than $2 million.
With the new changes, the School’s tax request will be $.809384 suggested at the public hearing on Monday, Sept. 23 – or a 6% increase over the $.76 from the year before.
Overall, the operating budget did get cut by around $300,000 total, with the general fund sitting at $10.1 million, the special building fund relying mainly on funds already raised, and settling at $11.3 million with all funds budgeted, spent or not.
Largely the biggest difference is the $5.5 million being requested instead of the $6.4 million originally requested – dropping that 24% increase down to just 6%.
“Unfortunately, I see us kicking the can down the road, and then we aren’t going to have the ability to even tax at our need level,” said Farup. “Taxing authority is based on what you spent/taxes the year before. So if you cut those, your tax authority will go down.”
“We were trying to prepare for the future,” said Farup. “However, it was clear that our taxpayers couldn’t carry that burden. So, we have dropped those plans and cut to where we think we can survive by eating into cash reserves, trying to cut spending, not building anything, etc.”