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PI-401 Tax Levies Reporting Instructions

Special Note

School boards must approve levy amounts on or before November 1 each year. The PI-401 will open for district entry on October 17, 2022, the due date is November 4, 2022.

Overview

Each year, per Wis. Stats. 120.12 (3)(a), prior to November 1, each school board must vote a levy necessary to operate and maintain the schools of the school district. In addition, by November 10 the district clerk must deliver to the clerk of each municipality a statement showing the proportion of tax to be collected from the property in the school district lying within that municipality (s.120.17(8)(a) Wis. Stats).

This application collects school district tax levy information and replaces all prior paper reporting processes. Levy amounts are entered by fund. Once data is submitted, the program automatically apportions the total levy across municipalities, creates individual municipal tax certification pages and reports information to both the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Department of Revenue (DOR). The PI-401 tax levy data is used by DPI to determine district compliance with the revenue limit statute Wis Stat §121.92.

The PI-401 Tax Levies Report can be accessed through the School Finance Reporting Portal. District personnel can go to the "Status and Deadlines" link or the "Financial Data Home" link and select the PI-401 Tax Levies Report. You must enter your user id and password to log into the program.

Instructions

The district should not enter data into this application unless their revenue limit computation has been updated with their third Friday FTE student enrollment, October 1 Tax Apportionment values and their Aid Certification amounts (thus completing all the information required to ensure the district levies within their revenue limit). Additionally, the school board must have officially voted on levy amounts for that year.

These instructions may also be viewed in the SFS Budget and Adoption Process Overview page (step #6) for specific instructions on completing the PI-401.

Accessing the PI-401 Tax Levies Report

The PI-401 Tax Levies Report can be accessed through the School Financial Services Reporting Portal. District personnel can go to the "Status and Deadlines" link or the "Financial Data Home" link and select the PI-401 Tax Levies Report. You must enter your user id and password to log into the program. Instructions for Completing the PI-401 are also available.

The district should not enter data into this application unless their revenue limit computation has been updated with their third Friday FTE student enrollment, October 1 Tax Apportionment values and their Aid Certification amounts (thus completing all the information required to ensure the district levies within their revenue limit). Additionally, the school board must have officially voted on levy amounts for that year.

Tax Levy Input by Fund

After logging into the School Financial Services Reporting Portal, the district is to complete the contact information page. Once that is completed, the district is to enter the tax levy by fund. Districts are reminded to review the data thoroughly. The total levy amount entered should agree with--and equal--the amounts on lines 18 (Fund 10 levy), 14b (Fund 38 non-referendum debt), 14c (Fund 41 capital expansion), 15a (Fund 39 referendum-approved debt), 15b (Fund 80 community service) and 15c (prior-year levy chargeback) of the district’s revenue limit worksheet.

The next page will allow the user to select the "Rounding Level" used by the school district, while the following page will need to be completed by districts who had a Referendum Approved for Non-Permanent Basis Levy (Debt). The following directions will assist the user to complete this part of the PI-401 report:

Reporting FY 2019-2020 Tax Levies - Referendum Approved Non-Permanent Basis Levy

Per §74.09(3)(db) a school board is required to separately report any tax levies that exceed its annual revenue limit as a result of a successful referendum to exceed the limit on a non-permanent basis. State law requires the levies associated with all debt and non-recurring operation referendums passed after December 31, 2014 to be listed separately. The property tax bill must also include the year in which the non-permanent referendum to exceed the revenue limit no longer applies. To complete this report, the PI-1804 provides a step for districts to complete. This step is listed as, “Referendum Approved Non-Permanent Basis Levy.”

  1. Click on the gray shaded rectangular button with a plus sign.
    1. If no referendum populates, then no further action is needed.
    2. Districts are not required to select referendum that have expired.
    3. If an active referendum populates the next window, then select the identified referendum, which will take the user to step 2.
    4. If there are two or more active referendum that populates the window, the user will have to complete this process for each of the active referendum listed.
  2. After selecting the active referendum, enter the year the referendum expires in the "Year Expires" cell, which corresponds to the last year of the associated debt payment(s).
  3. Enter the levy amount for that active referendum for the current fiscal year.
  4. The user must manually subtract the current year referendum levy amount from the “Total Levy” and enter that number into the "Remaining Levy" cell.
  5. Click on the “Next” button to proceed with the PI-401 reporting process, the Reasonability Report.

Reasonability Report

The next step is to view a reasonability report that compares the current year levy with the prior year levy. If the reasonability report is correct, go to the next page.

Submitting the PI-401 to DPI Along with Printing the Certification Page and PI-1508 Forms

While submitting the PI-401 to the DPI, the user may have to click on "Review Your Answers" which will take the user to the FY 20XX-20XX Tax Levy summary. Please review this data for accuracy.

Once in that page, select the PI-1508 Forms link found in the Helpful Links section. After these forms are downloaded, print the PI-1508 and then the PI-401 tax levy certification page. The district is required to sign the forms and maintain these forms in the district records. The School District's Clerk--along with a Notary Public--must sign these forms. Once signed, the district must send these completed forms to their municipalities.

Note that the levy by municipality has already been calculated. This information will be electronically submitted by DPI to DOR on the district’s behalf. There is no longer a paper form that is submitted to DOR.