School board thanks community

WAUPACA – The operational referendum was passed to help the district cover day to day costs from salaries to utilities and Mark Flaten, district administrator, thanked the community for their continued support of the district at an April 14 school board meeting with the approval of a two-year operational referendum.
The decision to go to referendum in the spring election came after discovering there would be a one and a half million-dollar shortfall in the upcoming budget.
The shortfall was a result of receiving less state aid and an increased amount of tax dollars that was redistributed to private or religious schools due to the school-choice program.
This school year saw the voucher funds exceed $1,500,000, which was about the amount of the shortfall in the district.
Betty Manion, the president of the school board, also offered a few remarks regarding the approval of the referendum.

“This was a nail biter,” Manion said.
She said there was ton of work that went into this referendum and Manion commended her core team for coming together to get all information out to the public, as well as keeping people updated within the administration as well as the public.
“To our community for the support and just having faith in the board and our administration to go forth with this generous amount of money,” Manion said. “And to take time to evaluate our program and everything we do so that we can improve how we do things … and bottom line it’s all for our kids. So thank you so much to this entire community.”
Manion also said it was tough to see some of the referendums not make it through, because she was able to see first-hand how much work goes into the referendum process.
Steve Klismet, school board treasurer, said things were a little tense due to never having needed an operational referendum and ensuring that the public knew and understood what it was and how it is used.
Klismet said now is when it is time to produce and work hard to continue to be good stewards of taxpayer money.
Flaten also thanked the board for bringing questions in from the community and focusing in on concerns in the community to ensure the public understood what was happening.
“It takes a village to educate a child and it takes a village to make sure education can work,” Flaten said.