Neillsville District Administrator Discusses Items From the Annual and Regular October Meeting

Thursday, October 23rd, 2025 -- 1:01 PM

The Neillsville School Board held their Annual Meeting and regular Board Meeting for October on Monday.

I spoke with District Administrator Corey Peterson and he discussed several items on Monday’s agenda including the approval of the 2025-26 Tax Levy at the Annual Meeting.

Listen to the interview with Mr. Peterson here!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about what’s happening at the District, you can contact Mr. Peterson.

(Photo courtesy of the School District of Neillsville)

(AI assisted transcription by Otter.ai)

Mr. Peterson: "Taking a look at our tax levy for the year, we started with an overview on state budget and how that impacted our local expenditures and our property taxes."

"So, taking a look at the state budget and the impact there, something for our taxpayers to keep in mind is that any new aid coming from the state this year will come through the local taxpayers."

"So, the $325 per pupil increase will come through the local level. And that's a key piece, because all districts are in the same boat there, with the $0 that are coming through general aid."

"Some increased areas that we are going to see funding would be special education. So, the benefit to that is that with our transfer from our fund 10 to cover fund 27, over the years, every districts in the same boat, oftentimes your expenditures are going to override your revenue there."

"The state level is bringing on board more funding for that. So, we're looking for an increase in funding from roughly 30% to 42%, may or may not quite hit that 42%, but something to keep in mind, as it benefits our budget."

"As we look forward to the levy across the board, our fund 10 budget for the year and as we take a look at that, we are looking at a $13.5 million total balanced budget with revenues equaling expenditures."

"The debt service for this year has gone up as our debt schedule is allotted over the years for the next roughly 20 years. It did go up this year as predicted. All that being considered, when we take a look at our levy, we are looking into revenue."

"Our revenue limit of $4.3 million. A key piece for our taxpayers to understand as well is that our property values locally have gone up roughly twice the rate of the state."

"So, the state level has an 8% increase in property value. Neillsville increased by 15%. All that being said, when we set our levy for the year, we are looking at a fund 10 levy of $4.3 million, $922,000 for our debt service, $75,000 for our fund, 80 totaling, a total value for our tax levy of $5.3 million."

Riley: "Sound good. Of course that was brought forward to the regular October meeting and approved. The Board also heard a Buildings and Grouds projects update. Can you discuss that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, we get some exciting things continuing to happen here with our referendum finalizing and the construction of our capstone project. So, a couple updates on that."

"If you're around campus on November 3, you will see some activity taking place. While it's not a student contact day, we are going to be doing some other updates to the campus."

"A couple things you'll see taking place. Our flooring and our front entrance will be getting laid down on that day, a key step towards finalizing that project, and then as we take a look at the parking lot, we will be setting poles and the lighting for our parking lot. Just in time for our fall back season, we're going to have some extra lighting and added to the parking lot, so that'll be coming on board."

"In addition, if you're driving through campus, you'll see that our track storage shed, or storage shed next to the track down there, is our capstone project for our students this year, and they are making progress on that. All the walls are up, and they are continuing to build on that daily. So come on by and take a look at that as we see some kids in action. It's a great learning experience for everybody involved."

Riley: "The Board also approved contracting services with West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission; can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Over the last year or so, we've been working with Safe Routes to School, and through this commission, we've been talking in depth as to what our long term plan could be and we have an implementation schedule for the next couple years for activities that would like to accomplish."

"Bringing the Regional Planning Commission on board through this contract will help us accomplish a lot of those, whether it be increased educational opportunities for kids from the Safe Routes to School instituted with bike rodeos, operations of sorts, more signage safety measures on campus."

"We talk about potentially adding more signage on campus to increase speed bumps, things of the sort, to make sure that we make it more conducive for a safe route to school that's been mapped out over the plans for the last few years that will be in conjunction with the city."

"So, the first phase of this will be a lot more on campus material that we're going to hone in on and then branch out from there towards more of the Safe Routes to School additions and opportunities in the school the city itself."

Riley: "The Board also heard the Achievement Gap Reduction Report; can you talk about that?"

Mr. Peterson: "As we do each semester for the AGR report, part of this is focused in on through the state, maintaining a lower ratio per student/teacher in the classroom and we report on where our goals are for the year and how we're looking to accomplish those."

"Congratulations to our staff and students. We are setting the mark really high here this fall. We start the year off with some very, very impressive numbers in our reading and our math scores."

"We're going to continue to look to build those and the emphasis with our AGR report is the growth of all students. We want to make sure that everybody's growing, and we want to make sure they get as many as proficient as possible."

"We have some grade levels that are really hitting the mark, and we have others. We're going to continue to grow as well. So, this is annually reviewed. We look at at the front end of the year and back end of the year to make sure that we're on pace for our goals, and we make sure that they're board approved,"

Riley: "The Board also approved a donation; can you touch on that?"

Mr. Peterson: "Yeah, great donation from Unity Bank, and we're very appreciative of their donation. They sent our way some water bottles, Kleenex, paper towel, hygiene products, colored pencils, just the whole scattering of materials that we can use in a lot of different ways to help support the needs of our kids."

"And very, very much appreciated. We continue to see this every month that our community is so supportive of our work here, and they help fill in those gaps of the needs for the students across the board."

Riley: "Anything else you'd like to discuss?"

Mr. Peterson: "I just want to appreciate and say thank you to our school board. It was School Board Appreciation Week October 5 to the 11th. So, thank you to our school board and what they're doing to keep our students and staff at the front center of their work. We want to celebrate that across the board. And congratulations."

"I know we've had homecoming the mix, but just the excitement this fall and how that's all played out has been very impressive. We're seeing more kids on campus with our increased numbers this year for our student enrollment."

"So, it's a great time for us here locally, and a great opportunity for us to celebrate. So, our community should be very proud of the district that we have rolling right now. But from the financial side of things, financial security to the side of our instructional capacity, it's impressive."

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.