SPRING VALLEY — The Spring Valley School Board heard presentations on timelines for referendum projects and the referendum interest and financing outlook after announcing senior award winners April 30.

Rob Brown of Nexus Solutions presented to the board on the status of the referendum that passed in April.

“There was significant conversation on whether or not to go to referendum with two questions, and, ultimately, it turned out well,” Brown said. “You saw with question two with the track, it actually passed at a slightly higher rate than question one. That suggests that, ultimately, the track as proposed was the track that your community was looking for.”

Brown showed the timeline for the project with bidding expected in late 2025, pool construction in early 2026 and the rest of the construction starting in spring 2026.

Debby Brunett of BAIRD then presented to the board on financing the referendum. The district is still on track for its planned interest rates, but they do not have a locked in rate currently. Brunett said the market was unpredictable for some time but has finally started to stabilize. The bond has a 20-year term running until 2046.

“The market has started to digest what’s happening,” Brunett said. “The tariff conversations have settled a little bit.”

District Administrator John Groh expressed interest in paying excess district money toward the referendum bond to limit interest down the road. After the 2019 referendum passed, the district saved $1.2 million in interest payments by coming in under budget and using the surplus to pay down the total.

The district approved 3% raises for staff with the exception of individual compensation requests which were looked into during closed session.

St. Croix Central passed a referendum focusing on increasing staff pay and Menomonie is at $83,000 on average, but the Cardinals are staying competitive with the area districts’ top compensators. Spring Valley expects to sit around $81,000 for average staff pay. Starting salary in Spring Valley is about $45,500.

Spring Valley improved its district ranking once again, now sitting 76th of 421 school districts in Wisconsin and fourth of 39 CESA 11 schools. That ranking has improved dramatically over the last handful of years, as they were ranked 339 in 2017-18.

Senior Awards

Spring Valley announced its winners of Senior Awards for the Class of 2025. Elijah Haug and Daniel Cipriano shared the Valedictorian award with perfect GPAs over their times in high school. Haug also won the Academic Excellence Scholarship.

Lauren Bigaouette won the Salutatorian award for the district while Ian Sabelko received the honor of the Technical Excellence Scholarship.

Board Organization

The April election brought a reorganization of the school board. The roles were filled as follows:

President: Monica Vorlicek

Vice President: Jennelle Wolf

Clerk: Jessica Fritz

Treasurer: Joan Ford

Buildings and Grounds Committee: Ford, Fritz and Ryan Glaus

Finance Committee: Ford, Vorlicek and Stacy Schultz

Policy Committee: Wolf, Monica Shafer and Schultz