Green Bay Area Public School District building. (IMAGE: Courtesy of Fox 11 WLUK)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The Green Bay Area Public School District continues to examine a variety of budget reduction options for 2026-27, including no salary increases for staff and a variety of operational changes, such as increasing fees, reducing the number of school days, delaying technology purchases and/or closing the pools.
The district held public information meetings last week to gather feedback on the issue from residents.
The board’s next meeting is scheduled for March 9. The agenda for that session hasn’t been posted yet, so it’s unclear what budget topics may be addressed then.
Declining enrollment, lower-than-budgeted state aid for special education and other factors have contributed to GBAPS’ budget problem.
According to a Feb. 9 memo to school board from Superintendent Vicki Bayer, initial projections for next year’s budget started with a deficit of $12.5 million. The district has said that figure is now closer to $8 million.
“District administrators have been working to address the structural deficit created by not receiving a cost of living increase in the state budget, and declining enrollment. Without providing any type of salary increase for staff, the District currently has a balanced budget for the 2026-27 school year. This was made possible through attrition, staffing methodologies to address declining enrollment, reducing contracted services, and school consolidations. The District will be requesting the Board of Education to provide direction to administration on further cuts in order to provide salary increases while maintaining a balanced budget. The District will be requesting the Board of Education approve a November 2026 operational referendum. The amount requested will be determined based upon reductions/cuts made that reduce the District’s structural deficit,” the memo states.
In a three-page spreadsheet titled “Budget Saving Items for Discussion Purposes Only,” the administration summarizes more than 30 options for budget and operational changes.
Besides the $7.9 million in savings with no pay increases, the possible impacts range from $10,000 to $1 million. On the larger end, some of the items include:
Delay technology purchases: $1 million
“Should not defer past one year. Does not help to address long-term structural deficit seeing that we would have to purchase or double up the following year.”
Evaluate specialty programs for ROI (ex: IB , Fine Arts, AVID, etc.): Ranging from $500,000 to over $1,000,000
“Complete ROI for all specialty programs; impact on 27-28 budget”, which is in progress.
Reduce or eliminate Income Protection Plan and offer Voluntary (not-District funded) Short Term Disability: Up to $700,000, if eliminated
Defer non-referendum facilities projects: $1million
“Should not defer past one year. Does not help to address long- term structural deficit.”
Other items would have a smaller budget impact:
Stop posting Board meeting notices and minutes in newspaper: $10,000
“We currently already post meeting notices in three public places and on our website which meets the requirement.”
Close the pools at Edison and Southwest: $100,000
“If closed will have significant future cost savings and avoidance. Annual Costs per pool estimated at $46,600 each. Other scheduled maintenance $1,800 each per year (items need maintenance or replacement every 3-10 years). Cost avoidance for our daily required staff maintenance is estimated at $16,000 per year. This estimate does not include repairs or life guard staffing and training. We recently replaced the AHU at SW costing $140,000. With the age of the pools and related equipment we would anticipate an increase of major repairs in the near future.”
Reduce number of school days in the school year: $41,000
“Savings comes from transportation and the staffing of some positions.”
Several revenue-generating options are mentioned, but none have dollar amounts attached to them. A few include:
- Sell naming rights to stadiums, theaters, etc.
- Increase facilities rental fee
Looking beyond the next academic year, the situation for the 2027-28 year is vastly different due to the end of funding from the operational referendum passed in 2017.
“In addition to the expiring operational referendum, the district’s overall structural deficit continues to grow due to rising inflation, declining enrollment, and ongoing staffing retention efforts. The projected deficit is approximately $24 million to $32 million for the 2027-28 school year (factors include: inflation, salary, benefits, ESSER contracts). Any reductions/cuts that have annual savings made prior to the 2027-28 school year, will help to reduce the structural deficit,” the memo states.
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