At a budget hearing in October 2025, district staff presented a balanced $82,200,000 budget for the 2025-26 school year and outlined how state budget changes and declining enrollment affect local revenue and spending. Presiding Officer opened the hearing and turned the presentation over to Kelly of the district finance team, who guided attendees through revenue limits, fund balances and planned capital work.

Kelly said the 2025 state budget included a $325 per-pupil revenue-limit adjustment and left the low-revenue ceiling near $11,000, but did not change how equalization aid is calculated. "A big change was an increase to our special education categorical aid…that's gonna result in almost a $900,000 increase in special education aid," Kelly said, while noting final distributions may be lower than the statutory percentage.

The presenter explained Wisconsin revenue limits are calculated using a three-year rolling membership average based on the third-Friday counts; DC Everest's three-year average is 5,682. The district has seen a headcount decline of about 208 students over the last two years, and officials said the declining-enrollment exemption exists to soften revenue impacts but requires careful forecasting.

Officials described how total revenue for a district is the sum of state aid and tax levy under the revenue-limit formula. Although the revenue limit rose for 2025-26, Kelly said aid did not increase proportionally in the state budget, which shifts more of the change to taxpayers. District staff said they plan to use debt defeasance and adjustments to referendum and nonreferendum debt levies to keep the district's total levy request stable. The presentation cited nearly $10 million in prior interest savings from defeasance activity.

Fund-by-fund highlights provided in the presentation included a June 30 beginning fund balance for operational funds of about $20,400,000; a special-education budget near $15,100,000 with a projected year-end transfer from Fund 10 to Fund 27 of approximately $8,200,000; a Fund 46 capital-improvement balance that received a $2,300,000 transfer at last fiscal year-end and was reported at roughly $2,900,000 earlier this month after summer projects; and a Fund 80 community-service levy set at $450,000. Staff said planned remaining capital work for the year is about $500,000 and noted an upcoming board item to accept donations that will fund arena cooling and a hockey-chiller replacement.

Kelly also reviewed the district's revenue composition (state aid and local revenue from the revenue limit make up the largest shares), spending composition (two-thirds of spending is salaries and benefits), and cautioned that a 1% variance in an $82 million budget represents about $1 million in dollars. She reiterated fund balance is a point-in-time accounting measure, not a separate bank account, and that cash-flow timing requires the district to manage reserves carefully.

The presentation concluded with staff opening the floor for questions; the budget hearing was then adjourned and the annual meeting convened.

Ending: The district presented the 2025-26 budget as balanced while flagging declines in enrollment, modest shifts in state aid, and continued reliance on debt and fund transfers to stabilize the levy and preserve capital capacity. No formal budget votes were taken during the hearing portion of the meeting.