Muskego Schools Get Aid Increase

The headline from the State Department of Public Instruction would lead most to brace themselves for a cut to school funding, however officials at Muskego-Norway Schools are happy with the outcome.

Muskego schools will receive a 1.4 percent increase in state aid, or about $195,000 for the 2012-2013 school year. MNSD received $18,939,310 in 2011-12 and will see an aid package for 2012-13 of 18,744,421.

Scot Ecker, Director of Business Services for the district said he was pleased with the results, as "every K-12 district that surrounds Muskego-Norway will receive a decreased amount of aid compared to last year, this will likely lead to an increase in taxes for those districts.  However, Muskego-Norway will have an increase in state aid which will result in a reduced tax levy as compared to last year.  This will be the first time since 1997 that we will have two years in a row of decreasing tax levies."

"Over the past few years, our district has taken calculated and sometimes controversial actions to reduce costs and increase enrollment, in part to deliberately cause an increase to our state aid," ecker stated in a release. "This is a day of celebration for us as these efforts, specifically a change in health insurance and the addition of four-year old kindergarten, have been validated."

Ecked explained the increase in state aid would be used to lower the district’s local property tax burden, with half will being reinvested into the "rehabilitation of our aging facilities."

In contrast, 64 percent of the state’s public school districts (272 of 424) will receive less school aid for the 2012-13 school year than they did in the previous year.

Overall, schools will receive $4.293 billion in general aid for the current school year, an increase of 0.7 percent from last year. This aid amount is down more than 7 percent from two years ago when the 2011-13 biennial budget cut general school aid by 8.1 percent.

To view the complete list of school districts and the aid disbursement, click here.

MNSD will have a public meeting to discuss its final budget at the district's annual meeting on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Muskego High School Performing Arts Center.