Community Spirit–December 2025
Ryan Ruggles, District Administrator
Investing in Our Schools
Like many school districts across Wisconsin, the Tomorrow River School District is facing the growing challenge of reduced state funding. This year, 71% of districts will receive less in state funding and for our district that means roughly $440,000 less than last year. This is despite the fact that we are up over 20 students as a district due to our high open enrollment numbers. As the cost of providing a quality education continues to rise with inflation, the situation underscores a critical belief for our district, and that is we want what’s best for our kids and families, and we want to be the best district in Central Wisconsin.
The district’s leadership team has adopted a clear budget planning philosophy built around the following key principles: be open and transparent; recognize the budget impacts from the state and educate the community on those impacts, be solution minded and creative problem solvers; continue to seek alternative revenue sources; critically evaluate all spending for the next school year; and never lose focus on being the best for our students, families, community, and staff. These guiding values have helped keep the conversation honest, forward-thinking, and community-centered as tough decisions lie ahead.
At our Annual Meeting in September, the community electorate met to set the budget and levy for the 2025-2026 school year. The district administration and school board shared some of the budget realities from the state level, and our budget planning philosophy. One of those realities included information around the previously established $325 per pupil increase from the state. Under the current state budget, that money is not given to districts (no per pupil increase this year or next) but school districts are “allowed” to levy that amount if they choose. That decision certainly puts us in a tough position as a school district.
If you look at the attached graph of Mill Rate History in Tomorrow River Schools, you will see that we have leveled off on our mill rate and made it much more predictable after two years of fluctuations. Last year we came in under our pre-operating referendum projected mill rate, and if the state would have increased funding per pupil using the previously established $325 per pupil, we would have once again come in under the projected mill rate this year. Ultimately the district decided to use some debt services to pay down the budget and not levy the full amount we were allowed, and the levy was passed with a mill rate of $7.99 for this year.
While state aid has decreased, Tomorrow River Schools is taking proactive steps to build new streams of revenue and strengthen local partnerships. We are starting our new fundraising efforts this Fall and early winter. Donors will have opportunities to support four areas of need within the district. Additionally, we will be opening our new K-12 statewide virtual learning school, Wisconsin Online Learning Academy (WIOLA) for the 2026-2027 school year. This school will not only compete for enrollment from the entire state, it has the potential to bring in additional revenue to the district so we can continue with creative programming here while not adding more to our taxpayers.
Through it all, in Tomorrow River we remain focused on serving our students, families, and community. We are confident in what we are doing, we will continue to be proactive with advocating at the state level, and we will lead with our shared goals and values. Investing in education isn’t just a financial decision, it’s a shared commitment to the future of the entire community. Thanks for all of your support.
