Hurley School Board sets 2024-25 budget, levy

By MEGAN HUGHES

[email protected]

Hurley — The Hurley Area School Board of Education met on Monday for its annual meeting, in which district administrator Kevin Genisot presented the public with the budget for the 2024-2025 school year.

The board then voted to approve a proposed levy of $2,995,698, as presented for operation of the school, for the same time period.

This levy amount is $588,334 higher than the unaudited total from the previous school year.

The levy and budget then were both formally approved at the regular October board meeting, which immediately followed the annual meeting and a budget hearing.

According to provided documents, the total budget for the 2024-2025 year is $9,225,892.

At the annual meeting, any members of the public present also were encouraged to vote on the motions made, with the stipulation that they were residents of Wisconsin who were within the district.

“This is the only meeting all year long where anybody in the audience can make a motion, support a motion and vote,” said Genisot.

He explained some of the expenses over the last few years, including that over the past four years, the school district has sunk over $4 million into school improvements.

“Where we have come in the past five years, it’s incredible,” said Genisot.

He also shared that, this year, the Hurley School District has 518 students, with an increase of students coming from open enrollment, which brings in students from Mellen and Mercer.

Genisot explained that the Hurley area has increased in value in recent state assessments, which will result in a decrease of state aid. The school is estimating this change to be a $410,000 decrease from previous years.

“We jumped up about $80,000,000 in assessed value in our district,” he said. “As we continue to see the prices of our homes drive up, our asset value increases, our number of students goes down slowly — that means we are a very, very rich district on paper, so our funding from the state is going to decrease.”

Also at the annual meeting, the board voted to increase the salaries of the current board, including reimbursement for mileage and related school expenses to $225.

In other news, the board also:

— Approved that students within two miles of the school would be offered transportation for safety reasons such as cold weather.

— Authorized the board to obtain legal counsel for the school district as necessary.

— Approved the payment for student accident insurance at the annual cost of $3,900.

— Set the next annual meeting of the Hurley School District for Oct. 20, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. with regular board meeting to follow.