GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The Green Bay Area Public School District is preparing for a budget deficit between $10 million and $12 million for the 2025-26 school year, a challenge administrators say is part of a broader issue affecting districts across Wisconsin.
“We are projecting that, if all things stay the same, we would be entering the 25-26 school year with a deficit ranging between 10 to 12 million dollars,” said Green Bay Superintendent Vicki Bayer.
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Bayer attributes much of the financial uncertainty to the state’s budget process and restrictions on school funding.
“A lot of it really hinges on the timing for the state to finalize their own budget. Because we do our budgeting for the school year based on the funding we would expect to receive from the state,” Bayer said.
The district has presented potential cost-saving measures to the school board, including reducing or eliminating online school options and outsourcing the short-term disability program for employees.
“We presented some options for the board on Monday night. They include things like either eliminating or greatly reducing our online school options, looking at our short-term disability program that we offer our employees, and switching to a vendor outside the district for that,” Bayer explained.
The superintendent also emphasized that Green Bay is not alone in its financial struggles, citing a statewide issue with how public education is funded.
“The reality is that the state of Wisconsin has a system for funding public education that is not sustainable. As I mentioned Monday night at the board meeting, we are not the only district that is entering, almost every school year, at a deficit,” Bayer said.
Other school districts, including Appleton, are experiencing similar challenges. Holly Burr, executive director of finance for Appleton Area School District, pointed out that revenue limits imposed by the state have not kept up with inflation.
“I think there’s a lot of districts in the same area right now. The revenue limit increases from the state have not kept pace with inflation for the past 15 years,” Burr said.
Burr noted that while there was a recent increase in state funding, it still fell short of inflation.
“There was an increase in the revenue limits and as well as $325 per pupil, unfortunately that still fell very short of inflation at the time. So this is what’s creating a lot of these deficit budgets for a lot of districts, including Appleton,” Burr said.
Appleton has managed to balance its budget by using savings built up over time, but that strategy is not a long-term solution.
“We had built up a fund balance over a number of years, so that’s what we’ve been using to balance our budget the last two years and moving forward,” Burr explained.
Green Bay has already taken drastic measures, including closing six schools in previous years, as state and federal funding have failed to cover key expenses.
“We ask the state and the federal government to help us by funding these unfunded mandates, and when they don’t come through, as we’ve done in the past, we’ve closed six schools. Those aren’t easy decisions for the board to make and hard for the community,” Bayer said.
One of Bayer’s main concerns is the disparity in per-student funding between districts.
“So right now we are locked in at $11,000 per pupil, where some districts are up in the $20,000s,” she said.
She also pointed out that revenue limits set by the state have penalized districts that were conservative with their spending.
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“The state has imposed revenue limits on all districts and when they impose that, the districts that were fiscally responsible and very conservative with their spending were penalized. We were locked in at a lower amount, that was us, that was Green Bay,” Bayer explained.
District administrators say they hope for additional support from the state in the upcoming budget cycle. If not, they may have to turn to taxpayers with a referendum to avoid further cuts to programs and services.
