Following a reduction last year, taxpayers will see 20 cent increase per $1,000 value for 2021-22

By Eileen Persike
Editor

Setting the tax levy was one of six resolutions approved at the School District of Rhinelander’s annual meeting Monday night.

Director of Business Services Robert Thom presented the 2021-22 budget, going through the revenue cap history, which in this budget is limited to raising $28,907,572 between property taxes and state aid. He pointed to the 2016 revenue limit of $28.7 million as a comparison.

“You can see it’s not going up and that is based on your enrollment and also what the legislature does for increasing revenue limit per student,” Thom said. “They haven’t done a lot… it used to be that districts were limited to $200 a student, then it dropped to $150 a student, and for a while it was zero a student, so it drives home that the operating referendums passing is really what is allowing the district to operate. If we were at the mercy of the state legislature we would be in serious financial trouble.”

The three-year average enrollment for SDR is up by 48 students, to 2,398 which helps the revenue limit as well as the amount of state aid the district will receive, which is $4.9 million for this budget. State aid directly impacts the tax levy, Thom explained.

“When we lose $700,000 of aid, we have to add $700,000 to the property tax,” he said. “It goes up and down; there’s 420 districts, it’s hard for us to do anything about it or know what’s going to happen one year to the next.”

Last year’s tax levy was $9.77 per $1,000 of equalized value. This year, the SDR portion of property taxes will be $9.97, or $997 on a $100,000 home.

At a special board meeting following the annual meeting, the board approved the budget as presented, with revenue and expenditures of $38,238,182.

Property Value
Rhinelander increase     1.70%
Statewide increase         6.62%

Tax Levy
Increase               3.81%

Mill Rate
Increase               2.08%

Amount of Tax Levy
$25,159,661