GBAPS gets a look at budget planning for the next two years

GREEN BAY – During its July 14 meeting, the Green Bay Area Public School (GBAPS) District Board of Education got its first look at budget planning for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school year, following the release of the state’s 2025-27 biennial budget.

“We knew coming into the 2025-26 school year that we would be facing a deficit unless the state really came through with a miraculous budget for us. We didn’t hold our breath, and that turned out to be smart on our end; so, we’ve been working this past school year to reduce our budget,” said GBAPS Superintendent Vicki Bayer.

The district did this through the closure and consolidation of three schools, reducing staff and department budgets and changing the employee benefits plan design changes.

“We’ve taken on a burden of some of the Employee Benefits plan, but also increased what our employees have to pay into it,” Bayer explained.

“And we passed a referendum, and the purpose in large part for the referendum was to prepare for consolidation and energy efficiency.

“So, looking at long-term financial savings for the district, we’ve been at this for three years now, and it continues to be a challenge.

“So the next two years, we do know that there was no equalized aid added to the pot of money, so nothing to address inflation; and, if you recall, that’s an inverse relationship — so equalized aid and property taxes. So as your equalized aid amount goes up, your property taxes go down, so we have nothing to offset the increase that we’re going to see with that $325 per pupil that we’ve been talking about all along. So that was what Governor (Tony) Evers had signed into place with the veto — so that $325 remained. That’s what we have had in the budget model for the last couple of years, so that $325 was what we had projected for 2025-26 and 2026-27. But, the important thing to note is that it’s going to fall strictly on the property taxes because there is no aid to offset that.”

“So the operational budget is funded mostly, or primarily, by property taxes, equalized aid and then some federal funds,” explained GBAPS Chief Financial Officer Angie Roble. “and, obviously, the 2017 operational referendum that we passed back in 2017 in the amount of $16.5 million. So that’s what we’re going to kind of be talking about today, very different than the referendums that have been passed for 2022 and 2024 —we use those for facility updates and for capital improvements. So you know, long term. Some of those projects — the energy efficient project, of course — are going to help us in the long run on the operational budget side, but those (referendum) funds are strictly for capital updates, so not operational.”

The $325 per-pupil aid for 2025-26 and 2026-27 is now expected to fall on local property owners.

Roble also said that the special education reimbursement increase to 42% in 2025-26 and 45% in 2026-27 is not guaranteed and that a more accurate assumption would be a 39% reimbursement — approximately $3,100,000 more to support our students with disabilities— while each year the district shifts $35,000,000 from the general fund to special education.

The increase to higher cost special education expenses will equate to about $200,000 for Green Bay Area Public School District.

Roble also added that the public open enrollment transfer amounts, along with the voucher payments and payments to independent charter schools, will significantly increase over the next two years.

The district also received notification on June 30 that the United States Department of Education has frozen federal funds for Migrant Education, or Title I-C; Supporting Effective Instruction, or Title II-A; English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement, or Title III; Student Support and Academic Enrichment Programs, or Title IV-A; and Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers, or Title IV-B.

District staff will present the 2025-26 budget to the board on Oct. 13.