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Platteville School District projects $800,000 deficit for 2025–26; board reviews cost-control options
Summary
District leadership told the board it expects $800,000 of deficit spending in the coming school year and outlined options including health-insurance bidding (current contract ends 06/30/2025), vendor RFPs, staff attrition, freezing stipends, and a proposal to move the retirement-declaration deadline to Jan. 15 with a $1,000 early-retirement bonus to help recruitment planning.
District leadership presented a budget-planning briefing that projected $800,000 in deficit spending for the 2025–26 school year and outlined steps the district can take to reduce costs.
The administrator reported a recent maintenance expense for high-school boilers of roughly $20,000 and said the district’s largest cost remains staff. He told the board the district’s contract with its health-insurance provider (referred to as 'Dean' in the presentation) ends on 06/30/2025 and the administration will go out to bid. The district expects health‑insurance premium increases in the range of 10–15%; the administrator explained that, under state rules, the district is responsible for 87.4% of the premium while employees pay the remaining 12.6%.
To address the projected shortfall, the administrator described options including deferred maintenance, vendor RFPs to seek lower costs, reducing supply budgets, further staff reductions through attrition (the district reduced 1.2 full-time-equivalent positions earlier in the year), and reviewing co‑curricular pay and stipend structures. He proposed incorporating current stipends into the salary matrix to be cost-neutral while preserving goodwill and noted the district spends roughly $350,000 covering higher-education classes for students (early-college/higher-ed costs) that could be examined.
A procedural proposal under consideration would change the retirement-declaration date to Jan. 15 for planning purposes and offer a $1,000 bonus to employees who retire before that deadline (the bonus would not count toward WRS). The administrator said moving the date would provide more time to decide whether positions should be refilled, reconfigured or eliminated and help recruit early-career candidates.
Board action that session: The meeting record shows the presentation and discussion; the transcript records subsequent consent-agenda votes and actions (consent agenda approved; intern hire and principal retirement approved) but no immediate votes specifically approving the budget measures discussed. The administrator said more specific items and RFPs would be brought to the board for future consideration.
