Dave Welsch of Milford, Neb., is a farmer, but he also has served on local school boards — first with a Class 1 school, and over the past 23 years, on the Milford Public Schools board for a total of more than 30 years of service.
He has served nearly two decades as president of the school board at MPS. His experience as a farmer and a school board member has given him unique insights into school funding in Nebraska.
Property taxes
“As self-employed businesspersons, farmers are very aware of how property taxes affect their bottom line,” Welsch notes. “In our district, a farmer might pay close to $100 per acre in school property taxes, while right across the fence in a neighboring district, the taxes are less than $50.
“The reason for the difference is that the Milford district has a much lower valuation per student than our neighbors, so even though our neighbors spend about 50% more per student, our taxes are double due to the lower valuation.”
He also cites the state’s lack of ability to come up with a school state aid formula that compensates enough for those types of differences.
On the MPS school board, Welsch has served on the board’s negotiations and building committees.
“We’ve had about six major construction projects, with only one of them funded by a bond issue over 20 years ago,” Welsch says. “Since then, we have chosen to use other means of funding our construction projects, so that we can save taxpayer money by paying off the projects much sooner than it would take with a bond issue.”
He says that some of the school funding plans being proposed through the Nebraska Legislature may help to take the state out of 49th place in state support of education in the U.S.
“These plans will need to be closely watched, so that the changes will help bring down everyone’s property tax levies and also bring them closer together across the state,” Welsch says.
Welsch, who has testified over the past few years on behalf of his school district on legislation before the Nebraska Unicameral, understands the importance to farmers and to rural school districts of how schools are funded.
Kevin Wingard, superintendent at MPS, understands these issues extremely well, and appreciates the work Welsch does.
“Most importantly, Dave takes the time to learn the financial aspects of operating and funding a school district,” Wingard says. “MPS is unique in this area of the state, as we have a very low valuation in comparison to schools around us, so we do rely on state aid in combination with our local property taxes. Any increases in school levies are mainly a result of ag land valuation increases that cause a decrease in state funding and are not a result of an increase in school spending.