Green Bay Area Public Schools approve 2025 budget

GREEN BAY, WI – (WGBW) – Green Bay Area Public Schools District approved its 2025 budget this week. A mill rate for taxpayers will depend on whether voters approve Tuesday’s 183 million dollar referendum. Either way, the mill rate will go down this year. 

GBAPS Chief Financial Officer Angie Roble said the school district has been paying down debt from the 2022 referendum, which helps keep the mill rate either steady or decreasing. 

“This is a great opportunity for the district to be able to go out to referendum for $183 million dollars, and, yet, see that mill rate drop 61 cents. It’s a great opportunity for the district to do good things.” Roble said.

After the Green Bay Area Public Schools Board of Education approved the budget, they voted to approve two separate levies. One will be in effect if the $183 million referendum passes. The other will go into effect if it fails. If the vote passes, the mill rate will be $7.65, a reduction from last year. If it fails the mill rate will be $5.32. 

Board member Brian Milz mentioned before voting that he hopes the voters don’t look at the lower mill rate and vote to reject the referendum. 

“People are going to look at this. And they’re going to look at the mill rate changing between the 2 options. And I just want to stress once again, we have a large district and we have responsibilities,” Milz said. “In this time of the way we fund public schools in Wisconsin, it’s, unfortunately, a reality that we need to do this. The decrease in the mill rate is not worth it. We need to make sure that this passes and hopefully that we can continue to fund our schools.”

Roble says the district will still have a balanced budget even if the referendum fails.