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The school board instructed Superintendent Willie Garrison to craft another referendum question for the spring, with the intent that if it fails the board could approve another question to go on the Nov. 5, 2024 ballot. The board is limited to two ballot referendum questions per year.

The school board has yet to approve a question for the April ballot.

All five sessions will be from 5:30-7 p.m. on their given nights.

Three of the listening sessions will be in person. The first one will be Wednesday, Nov. 29 at the Kolak Education Center, 1500 Fourth Street. The following one will be at the Rotary River Center, 1160 S. Riverside Drive, Tuesday Dec. 12. Then there will be one at the Beloit Public Library, 605 Eclipse Blvd., on Tuesday, Jan. 9.

There will also be two virtual ones – Thursday, Nov. 30 at and Monday, Dec. 18 at .

The listening sessions will follow a survey that will be mailed to district residents next week.

“We are looking forward to hearing from our students, staff, families and community through our survey and community learning sessions,� Garrison said.

Ahead of the 2023-24 school year, the district engaged in cost-cutting that balanced the budget after state and federal aid was disbursed. Cost-cutting included closing McNeel and Cunningham Intermediate schools, consolidating the middle schools on the east side of the city. The district reduced staff by 28 full-time positions by attrition.

“While these efforts have enabled a balanced budget in the 2023-2024 school year, we still have significant budget shortfalls that could affect our students and staff in the 2024-2025 school year,� Garrison said. “We want our community involved in addressing these issues.�

The district has also dealt with ongoing financial difficulties. It has had a declining rainy-day fund, or fund balance, which is expected to be at 9.88% at the end of the 2023-24 school year. It was as high as 20.62% in 2016-17.

Per district policy, the fund balance is supposed to be at 14% of its general fund expenditures annually.

“If I were to ballpark how much money is needed to get to that 14% in that fund balance I’d say about $4 or $5 million. That’s typically a value that you don’t replenish on an annual basis. So that’s likely something you’d strive to replenish over the course of a number of years, perhaps being in the position of having $400,000 available at the end of a school year that you put back into the fund balance,� Executive Business Director Bob Chady told the school board in October when the 2024 budget was adopted.

The district also faces challenges with declining membership, which is students who reside within the district. This year’s membership count was 6,261, down from 6,287 in 2022-23 and 6,451 in 2021-22.