Sun Prairie schools project short-term balance, warn of post-referendum deficit

Summary

District finance director presented a five-year budget forecast showing a roughly $511,000 surplus for 2025-26 but a potential large deficit after the 2028-29 end of referendum funding; administrators outlined initial uses for referendum dollars including transportation for DLI, expanded dual-credit seats and reserved compensation funds.

Phil Fry, the Sun Prairie Area School District director of business and finance, told the school board the district’s five-year budget forecast shows a small surplus for fiscal 2025-26 but a risk of a larger deficit after referendum funding expires in 2028-29.

Fry said the district’s model, built on the Robert W. Baird budget-forecast approach, projects about a $511,000 surplus on a roughly $135 million budget for 2025-26 but warned that “there’s a potential large deficit” in 2028-29 once referendum revenue ends. "When you're budgeting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years out, there's definitely a lot of assumptions involved," Fry said.

The forecast uses several key assumptions: enrollment projections from the University of Wisconsin APL (baseline model), a state aid increase of $325 per pupil (assumed, pending the state budget), a 3.75% salary increase for 2025-26 followed by 3% in later years, health-insurance cost increases of 10% in 2025-26 and 8% thereafter, and general inflation assumptions of about 3% after…

Sun Prairie schools project short-term balance, warn of post-referendum deficit

Summary

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