PRESCOTT — Prescott’s School Board provided further information on the district’s passed referendum that saw controversy over social media during the Dec. 18 meeting.

With the passing of the referendum in November, the board chose four priorities. The first of these priorities was to invest back into their current staff. The board also made providing staff with resources to meet district goals and providing students with resources to make progress feasible a priority. The final two priorities were reinstating athletics and arts budgets starting in fall 2025 that were cut and putting money into operations.

“The reason that we’re here, and the reason that we continue to be here as school districts, is because the funding from the Wisconsin legislature continues to lag CPI,” Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza said. “We are $47 above the floor. We are $1,200 per student below Hudson. The only way you can invest in your staff is based on the money that comes in per pupil.”

Spicuzza said the legislature sits on a $4 billion surplus, a number he would like to see reinvested into the state’s school system.

As for staff wages, Spicuzza said the district is aiming to land in the 50-75th percentile range for employee wages. The current number is about $1,500 below the mean, causing a proposal for an hourly increase of $1 per hour for hourly employees and an increase for salary staff and hourly employees working from 2023-24 to present time of 2.5% on top of a 1.5% increase, totaling a 4% raise.

The raises come out to about $180,000 added to the budget, with future wage increases projected at 3% annually.

“We believe that this is a conservative but necessary step to take to make sure that our staff are being fairly compensated,” Spicuzza said.

Bus drivers are expected to receive “an equitable stipend” which Spicuzza hopes is wrapped up before the January meeting.

Matzek said commitments to this increase and future 3% increases are possible because of the passing of the referendum.

The board heard a pair of proposals to complete an HR Job Study for PSD employees, but ultimately did not make a motion to approve one of them.

If one of the proposals was approved, it would have dove into compensation data and pay structures/models to provide recommendations to the district. Spicuzza liked the proposal through inTune Alera because he felt the process could be completed within the fiscal year.

Prescott last went through this process in 2018 and Spicuzza said it is time for the district to “recalibrate.”

“If this only comes along once every six, eight years, I think this is where you pay the experts to tell you this is where you need to be,” Board Treasurer Vicki Rudolph said.

Board Vice President Tanya Holub said she often feels hesitation to use consulting agencies when there are people in house that can go through the same process, but felt it was necessary this time.

“I don’t feel comfortable just throwing percentages at, I think, a system that’s not equitable,” Holub said. “I’m really in favor of investing to make sure that we are kind of renorming our system.”

The reason for no motion being made during the meeting was because members of the board had a few questions they would like to be answered before coming to a decision. Two of these questions were if inTune Alera has worked with a school district before or only businesses and whether their proposals would look at benefits.

The inTune Alera proposal would cost $8,525 plus $275 per position in compensation benchmarking. The Newport proposal was projected to cost $10,700 to $15,000.

Referendum talks picked up where they left off, as the board presented in an attempt to clarify any remaining miscommunication with taxpayers.

“It’s unfortunate that some of the individuals that came in and spoke aren’t here. Luckily, we do tape and this will be posted,” Spicuzza said. “A lot of people have beliefs and a lot of people have opinions, but the difficulty is they’re not facts. And the board has been factual in every step of the way, has been more transparent than many other districts as well as different organizations within our community.

“We have to, by law, in statute, must always describe information about equalized value, also known as fair market value, that appears on everybody’s tax statement that comes out in December. School districts do not have individual access to assessed values. We have five municipalities. All five of them assess at different times, all five of them are on different cycles and in addition, the ratio of an assessed property to its equalized property is never one. It’s correlated, but it’s not one. And the Department of Revenue requires schools to report out to the county and to the Department of Revenue equalized value. Equalized value is reported on an annual basis in July and then finalized and also imparted to the district on Oct. 15, when the board identifies how much it’s gonna ask the community through its levy for the amount that is required to operate our facilities, and pay our teachers, and run our schools,” Spicuzza said.

When the district decided to levy nearly $11.5 million, that number is split between Prescott, Diamond Bluff, Clifton, Trimbelle and Oak Grove based on property values within the areas. The number is not divided up equally to each.

This division led to Prescott taking on 40.5% of appropriation, Oak Grove following with 34.7%, Clifton at 19.5%, Diamond Bluff coming in at 3.4% and Trimbelle at 1.9%. Percentages change annually based on the changes in property values.

The district’s levy increased to $11,488,711 for 2024-25 from $10,350,998 in 2023-24, an 11% increase.

PSD’s mill rate, a number from the division of the school’s levy divided by equalized property value, came out to 7.766.

“This is the Prescott mill rate that we have been communicating since the final mill rate was set, and I believe that was after what, Oct. 15,” Board President Mike Matzek said. “Up until that point this changed a little bit here and there and therefore, I know there was some discussion last month about the mill rate was changing and we didn’t do a very good job communicating that out. I acknowledge that, but our final mill rate that was published on Oct 15 and it stayed the same as right here and it’s used in this formula to calculate the property taxes.”

Matzek displayed a pair of formulas used to get to the School Levy Tax Credit (SLTC) and ultimately the School Net Tax. The formula used by some municipalities uses assessed property value multiplied by the township mill rate, while the district by law has to use fair market (equalized) value. The roads to get to the final numbers are different, but they land in the same spot.

The slides presented by Spicuzza and Matzek were verified by the Department of Revenue, Spicuzza said.

Because of the way the system works, the city cannot finalize their mill rate until the district certifies their levy. With the operational levy voted on during the Nov. 5 election, the district could not give the city information until the election was certified. The TID increment added by the city to the school levy varies by the year. In what Spicuzza compared to dominoes, he said there is no way for the district to tell its taxpayers exactly what they will owe prior to the election.

Matzek showed examples of school levy tax from 2023 and 2024, which showed a decrease from $3,503 to $3,469 on a home with a $528,300 fair market value.

“The tax impact on the referendum was not as much as, I guess, you would think,” Matzek said.

“We’ve taken a lot of heat. There’s been a lot of stones casted at the board, and I felt as the board chair that it was necessary tonight to defend the integrity and character of the board,” Matzek said. “I take it personal every time we get attacked.”

Matzek said there are things the board can look at doing differently in the future, but felt the board was judged off a “work-in-progress” document with no fact-checking or questions being asked, which was spread throughout social media.

“I believe that is completely irresponsible and it’s divisive,” Matzek said. “If you have a question, ask the source.”
Matzek shared that the board has gone through six weeks of hard work after the referendum passing, and he feels more knowledgeable about the topic because of it; however, felt it all could have been avoided by asking questions. He said at the board level, this will likely be their final discussion of the topic in this manner.

Prior to the board presentation, members of the public had their chance to comment. Bailey Ruona, who formerly spent six years on Prescott’s City Council, said it is time the state gets involved and the district is held accountable for the numbers.

“We’re here now, but there has to be accountability to the taxpayers, there has to be,” Ruona said. “It cannot happen again. People can’t afford it.”

Ruona told the board she was going to use the Freedom of Information Act to request records of conversations that took place regarding the issue within the school.

A resident of Diamond Bluff, who graduated from the school in 2015 and is a First Lieutenant in the Army National Guard, said the Army prides themselves on leadership and integrity which she does not see at the top of the district currently.

“Today, I see a lack of integrity within the leadership of this district, which makes me very sad actually, considering I was a very proud student here,” she said.

She spoke of her displeasure with the handling of the situation from Spicuzza and the board.

“His negligence clearly defines his inability to perform financial duties by not being forthcoming about how taxpayers’ money is allocated and by spreading misleading, inaccurate and fraudulent information prior and after to the referendum passing,” she said.

Matzek said per board policy, personal attacks are not tolerated, asking her to continue without directly going after Spicuzza.

Chris DeWuske, a Prescott business teacher, said some staff members were afraid to speak out at the previous meeting due to fear of district retaliation.

“I’m here despite this fear because otherwise, nothing will change,” DeWuske said. “I have great relationships with my administrators and trust them to discuss things within their domain, but I am afraid of speaking to the board on district-level concerns for fear of disciplinary action for doing so because of what I know has happened in the past.”

DeWuske said the school’s policy of being allowed to discipline staff members for speaking at public comment should be changed. He noted a solution could be a teacher liaison to communicate issues with the board.

DeWuske also talked about teacher pay in the district and its incoming 1.5% increase despite his view of “already lagging” pay and better performance academically than many nearby schools.

“A shared governance model between staff and district would likely lead to wins for everyone involved,” DeWuske said.