Like most school districts in Wisconsin, the Dodgeville School District is facing a budget shortfall due to:

• Rising Costs: Inflation and operational expenses continue to increase.

• Declining Enrollment: Reduced birth rates across the state are declining and open enrollment out of the district is significantly larger than the open enrollment into the district. State funding is based on enrollment, impacting our budget while only partially compensating for special education related costs and state led initiatives such as Act 20

• Essential Needs: Day-to-day operations that include programming that prepares students for opportunities after graduation and competitive compensation for our staff to not only retain and also to train.

•  The district is asking for $2.49 million for operational expenses.  The  anticipated mill rate increase from $5.80 to $7.86 or $2.06.

• A mill rate increase of $2.06 would translate to $206 per $100,000 property value.  

• In November, we asked for $2,990,000.

•  We have cut $500,000 in staffing, purchased services, and supplies to reduce the tax burden on taxpayers.  

• The resulting ask in April will now be $2,490,000.

• We won't be able to come back with a new amount without making significant cuts to our staffing and overall programming.

• This request represents the amount needed to maintain a budget that allows us to be competitive in our programming and wages when compared to districts in our area.

• Maintaining Staff: Ensuring we retain high-quality teachers and staff through funding competitive wages, 

• Educational Resources: Investing in updated training and support for our staff to deliver high quality instruction and applicable skills to be competent in a time period that is changing faster than ever before.

• Operational Expenses: Covering essential services such as utilities, maintenance, transportation, course offerings, and co-curricular activities that allows us to be comparable to our neighbors.  

• No new buildings or facilities

• Fiscal negligence - No money is lost, missing, or unaccounted for

• Salaries and Benefits have been put into a healthy organizational structure and accounts for 62% of the total budget:

  • Professional Staff - 74.8%

  • Support Staff  - 15.4%

  • Administration - 9.8%

• Whole Child - Whole Dodgeville School District Committed to a focus on Learning, Well-Being, and Life Readiness for our students, staff, and entire Dodgeville School District community.

Focus on Learning:

• DES has exceeded expectations on the accountability scorecard 2 consecutive years and 3 of the past 4 years.

• DMS has met expectations and is less than one point away from exceeding expectations.

• DHS has shown almost 10 points of improvement and is within 2 points of exceeding expectations.

• The district overall is 0.3 points away from exceeding expectations and demonstrated growth in all comparative metrics.

• Investment in teacher training, ELA/Mathematics coaching, smaller class sizes, and academic support is proving successful.

• Consecutive gains in ACT scores and record high AP course credits earned in 14 different AP courses.

Well-Being:

• Investment in social-emotional screeners to support early identification of intervention needs.

• Embedded social-emotional learning at each grade level.

• Character development programs led by the School Resource Officer.

• Community partnerships supporting the whole child.

• Service learning and co-curricular involvement enrich student experiences.

  • 96 students have contributed 1934 hours of service through 540 activities within the first half of this school year.

Life Ready: The district strives to empower students to pursue their unique PATH (Passion, Abilities, Thoughts, Heart), while exploring the intersection of students’  interests and skills for their future success.

Think of levy limits like a household budget with a strict income cap set by someone else.

Imagine your family’s monthly income comes from two sources:

1. A paycheck from your primary place of work (like state funding for schools)

2. Side jobs (like local property taxes)

Now, let’s say someone sets a limit on how much total income your family can bring in each month—even if your expenses go up. If your paycheck (state funding) goes down, you can’t just take on more side jobs (raise property taxes) unless you get special permission (a voter-approved referendum).

This means if groceries, gas, and utilities (teacher salaries, classroom supplies, and maintenance) all get more expensive, but your income stays the same, you have to make tough choices—cutting back on family outings, canceling subscriptions, or finding creative ways to stretch your dollars.

Another analogy:

In the words of a middle schooler, think of levy limits like having an allowance with strict rules.

Let’s say your parents give you $20 a week (like state funding for schools), and you can also earn up to $10 from chores (like local property taxes). That means you have a total limit of $30 per week to spend.

Now, imagine prices go up—snacks, video games, entertainment, and movie tickets all cost more. You ask your parents if you can do extra chores to earn more money, but they say, “Nope, your total limit is still $30.”

If you really need more money, you have to ask your whole family to vote on it (just like a school referendum). If they say yes, great! You get more money. If they say no, you have to cut back—maybe avoid social events as you can no longer afford the ride to get there or the price to participate.

That’s how levy limits work for schools. Even if things get more expensive, they can’t just raise taxes unless the community agrees to it.  In the event that your parents pay for more, it still doesn't mean you actually got any more money, $30 was your limit.

Public education relies on the idea that all households, both with and without school aged children, contribute to funding.

High-quality public schools contribute to the overall community. For example, good schools bring in younger families, who stimulate the local economy and, in turn, support older adults through income taxes. Quality schools have been shown to lead to higher home values, stability in the community and a higher quality of life for residents.

While the district can continue to make cuts to help balance the budget, it cannot do so without negatively impacting the quality of education provided to our students. Additional cuts would mean even more reduced staffing, program cuts, limited resources and ultimately, a weakened school system that would negatively affect the community and local economy. 

We have reduced in administration over the past few years with a significant change this current year.  Our current financial summary in our total staff salaries and benefits is aligned with other districts of similar sizes and programs.  

• 62% of our total budget makes up salary & benefits; $7,635,667.00:

  • • • • 74.86% Professional Staff ($5,715,910.01)

        • 15.38% Support Staff ($1,174,384.99)

        • 9.76% Administrative Staff ($745,372.00)

All of our administrators are currently doing multiple roles as compared to previous administrative teams or other district.  Two of our current administrators are putting on community based events, Dodger Care and Co-curriculars, which allows part of their compensation to be removed from our fund 10 budget. 

Currently the district is investing in Alternative Education (SEEING Forward program) & Alternative

Placement

• Staffing Salary (Teacher, Admin, Driver) $148,000.00

• Tuition (Purchased Service) $54,000.00

• Travel related (Fuel & Vehicle Maintenance) $7,500.00

• Total $209,500.00

SEEING Forward Charter School

• Teacher ~$60,000.00

• Split Administration / Teacher ~$92,210.94 (Posting for the position in March or April)

• Support Staff ~$40,000.00 (dependent on student enrollments in charter school; posting in April/May)

• ~$192,210.94 (difference will either be invested in SF or DSD)

In the past 10 years, 26 of the 31 school districts in CESA 3 have passed at least one operational referendum (day-to-day expenses, salaries, utilities, routine maintenance, etc). One district has passed four in that timeframe. Of the 26 districts they have combined for a total of 47 total passed referendums. 

• Dodgeville School District has not passed any operational referendums in the past 10 years. 

• The last operational referendum Dodgeville School District passed was in 2012.

In the past 10 years, 21 of the 31 school districts in CESA 3 have passed at least one capital referendum. 11 of the 31 districts have passed two or more. 

• Dodgeville School District has passed two capital referendums (construction or building structures) during this time.

In the current year Dodgeville School District ranks 29 of 31 in school district mill rate.   

• Highest mill rate: $10.90

• Lowest mill rate: $5.41

• Dodgeville School District: $5.80

If we pass the referendum the mill rate will increase to $7.86. 

Mill rates are representations of a school district's levy amount divided by total property value.

Each mill rate is per $1000 of property value.

Tax Impact Calculator

We encourage everyone to go to utilize our tax impact calculator to help determine what the specific amount would be for their property.

Step 1:

Click here to search for your property to find your property's Fair Market Value. 

For more information on how to find your tax bill, click here.

Step 2:

Then, enter your property's Fair Market Value in the below Referendum Tax Impact Calculator to compute the potential yearly tax impact for the Dodgeville Schools portion of the tax bill for your specific property.