Less than a month after a well attended community meeting in Milroy on the consolidation of Tracy Area Public Schools and Milroy Public Schools, Tracy held a community meeting Monday night to continue the process.
Supt. Chad Anderson explained the discussions thus far as well as the priority to ensure students feel welcomed and provide opportunities for students and parents to spend time at TAPS prior to consolidation.
“When the students come from Milroy, we want them to feel welcome,” Anderson said. “We’re going to provide opportunities for those kids to come over here with their parents to tour the facility, meet the teachers, and start doing some cooperative things together. Mr. Munson and the teachers will welcome them with open arms. We’ll make sure the kids feel welcome because that’s what it’s really about. We look at them as all our kids.”
Both school districts are using Peter Martin for legal counsel. He will create the resolution for consolidation for both Milroy and Tracy. He is also creating the orderly reduction plan for transition of the consolidated school boards. Currently, Milroy has six school board members and Tracy has seven.
The plan would bring both school boards together and consolidate it down to a seven member board over four years, similar to what the Tracy and Balaton school boards did when they went through consolidation.
In addition to changes in the school board, residents in both districts would see changes to their property taxes.
Currently, Milroy school district is 88 square miles, while Tracy school district is 348 square miles. Both districts have a large amount of agriculture land. Additionally, both districts are financially healthy. The current proposal from both districts is to retain their own debt.
When looking at the tax implications, focused on each district retaining their existing debt, a Tracy Parcel that includes a home, garage and one acre valued at $200,000 and includes 400 ag acres at $12,000/acre would see an increase on the HGA of $56 and a decrease in the tillable ag homestead property of $111, resulting in a $55 tax decrease.
That same HGA and 400 ag acres in Milroy would see a decrease in total taxes by $53. The house, garage and one acre would decrease by $473, while the tillable ag homestead property would increase by $420.
In addition, the Tracy district has an existing referendum that it can renew one time in 10 years. That referendum would need to be renewed before consolidation if the board wants to exercise the option as it cannot be done after a consolidation. Supt. Anderson stated that the board would look at doing this in July.
In addition to the tax implications of the consolidation, Supt. Anderson explained that the Milroy staff would consolidate with TAPS staff. It would be up to the staff in Milroy if they would want to come to Tracy Area Public Schools or if they would look for a job elsewhere.
A Tracy teacher in attendance questioned what this would mean for TAPS staff. Supt. Anderson explained that Milroy’s staff would become part of their staff and their seniority would follow over. With the increased revenue from the consolidation, that would be used for the staff. However, Anderson stated that with the proposed budget cuts to education from Governor Walz, he could not predict the future.
Milroy Public School also has a bus garage. Both schools currently use 4.0 Bus Service. Anderson said that they would want to keep buses in Milroy to help with transportation but at this time nothing has been decided as to if the school or 4.0 Bus Service would be wanting to purchase the bus garage.
It is Supt. Anderson’s desire that no child would be on the bus longer than one hour. This was the same time frame used when Tracy consolidated with Balaton. Students are dropped at Tracy Area Elementary School at 7:45 a.m. so no student would be boarding a bus prior to 6:45 a.m.
The school building in Milroy was discussed and Supt. Anderson stated that the TAPS board does not want to take on the building.
The board does not want to commit the money needed for the school building. However, Anderson wants to make sure it doesn’t become a blight for the community.
“Everything has been very open and transparent and it will continue to be that way,” Anderson said. “We will work together to make it (consolidation) happen, its just that a few pieces of the puzzle haven’t slid into place quite yet. But we will continue to talk about it.”
