With voters raising taxes on themselves to help fund schools, public school advocates are calling for better investment from the state of Wisconsin for public schools. Students, parents, teachers and advocates joined a rally to increase funding for schools in the Wisconsin state budget at the Capitol on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsin voters approved 78% of school referendum funding requests across the state this week, raising taxes on themselves to grant schools over $3.4 billion for infrastructure and operations, including staff pay increases, program offerings and maintenance costs.

A total of 121 school districts put funding referendum questions on the ballot that combined sought more than $4.2 billion. According to the Department of Public Instruction, of the 138 referendum questions, voters approved 108.

Wisconsin Public Education Network leader Heather DuBois Bourenane said the organization was “thrilled” with the approvals. She said there were worries ahead of Election Day that voters were feeling “referendum fatigue” after about 60% of school funding requests passed in April. 

“Voters spoke loudly and clearly, and they said, ‘we’re here to support our kids in their public schools, and yes, yes, we will pay that bill’,” DuBois Bourenane said. 

DuBois Bourenane said the passage rate reflects that schools made responsible requests of voters and that school administrators and local teams formed to campaign for the referendum questions made sure voters knew what was at stake and the reasons for the requests.

The results reaffirm the widespread support for public schools across the state, she said, including from people across the political spectrum.

The results also come as Donald Trump, who has supported universal school choice, was elected to a second term as president and carried Wisconsin. Voters also reelected Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, an outspoken supporter of public schools, and returned a smaller Republican majority to the Legislature, where GOP lawmakers have worked to expand school choice. 

“Wisconsin might have gone red in this election — that does not indicate a desire for more privatization or desire to abandon or destroy our public schools,” DuBois Bourenane said. 

DuBois Bourenane and other school leaders said schools and their supporters are still working to  advocate for better investment from the state of Wisconsin. 

The largest referendum request in the state came from Madison Metropolitan School District, which asked voters for $507 million to fund  renovations for two schools and to build eight new buildings. The building request won the support of  72% of school district voters. A second request, for $100 million in operational costs, including increases for staff salary and benefits, passed with 69% in favor. 

“As excited as we are, we know that we still have much work ahead,” said MMSD Board President Nichelle Nichols and Superintendent Joe Gothard in a joint statement thanking voters. They added that it would probably not be the end of the district’s funding problems.

“Although the referenda have passed, it’s important for the community to know that we are still operating with a structural deficit. Our revenues are not keeping up with our costs,” they said. “We, along with other public school districts throughout the state, continue to be grossly underfunded by the state. Our team will come together and engage with the community to determine how to move forward and plan for the future.”

DuBois Bourenane said that where referendum questions failed to pass, some schools will struggle to meet costs. 

“It’s awesome that 78% of our referendums passed, but for the 22% that didn’t — some of these districts are going to face a really, really tough year,” DuBois Bourenane said. “We need to not forget that when we’re forced to go to the ballot box to raise taxes on ourselves to fund our schools, some communities do and some communities don’t.”

When questions are rejected, “We’ve just widened another gap, and what we should be doing is demanding the state close those gaps, or level the playing field for every kid, instead of forcing us to compete against each other for scarce resources,” she added.

Reedsburg School District in Sauk County had split results on Tuesday. Voters approved a $14 million facilities referendum for improvements at its high school, but rejected the district’s $16 million nonrecurring operational referendum request.

In a Facebook post, Superintendent Roger Rindo thanked the community for approving the facilities referendum and promised regular updates on the progress of projects and a community open house to view renovations as projects are completed. 

Rindo said he also respected the community’s rejection of the operational referendum, but added that there would be “difficult conversations around budget reductions and continuing to find ways to maximize operational efficiencies and ensuring that we maximize the dollars we have available to support our strategic directions.” 

Rindo also said he would continue to press state lawmakers “for sufficient financial support from the state, including continued and consistent increases to the revenue limit, increases in flexible state aid, adequate support for Special Education, and an increase to the low-revenue ceiling” — the minimum limit on a school district’s per-pupil revenue. 

“It is long past time that the state supported public education at a level that doesn’t put school districts in the position of continuing to ask their communities for additional funding,” Rindo said. “I hope you will join me in advocating with our elected officials.”

Wisconsin school districts have been increasingly relying on money approved via referendum to support local education. The state’s school revenue caps, which were first implemented in 1993, have not kept pace with inflation since 2009, leading schools across the state to regularly turn to voters to ask for additional funding. 

State leaders also reacted to the results this week. Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly called for investments in schools, while a Republican lawmaker pushed back on that. 

Underly said in a statement that the state Legislature has underfunded schools for over a decade, leading “a record number of districts going to referendum to try and fix severe financial constraints on their own.” 

“Too many communities were forced to vote Tuesday on increasing property taxes just so their local schools can pay staff, heat and cool their buildings, and provide a quality education,” Underly said. “The upcoming biennial budget provides yet another opportunity for the legislature to uphold its responsibility to appropriately fund public schools, and to stop forcing Wisconsin communities to make impossible choices.” 

Republican state Rep. Scott Allen of Waukesha, who won reelection on Tuesday, said in a statement that school referendums are “working.”

“These referendums keep the power and choice for how to spend tax dollars with people in local communities,” Allen said. “Instead of a one size fits all approach to the 421 school districts in our state, school referendums allow for local communities to weigh in on decisions that most affect them.” He said the results “proved that the will of the people does not always agree or align with the school administrators who want more taxpayer money.” 

With Democrats gaining seats in both houses of the state Legislature Tuesday, narrowing the Republican majorities, public school officials and advocates will likely focus on asking for lawmakers to put more state money in public schools.

DuBois Bourenane said there is “an opportunity here to build some bridges, improve our relationships… and find some ways to come together for public funding in the next budget.” 

“We’ve had 16 years in a row of budgets that didn’t even keep pace with inflation, and we have got to make a major dent in that trend this year …” DuBois Bourenane said. “From what I heard from candidates and both sides of the fence in this election cycle, there’s a pretty keen awareness of what that means, and it means doing something about the revenue limits that have been crippling our public schools for decades, and giving schools real, significant, spendable aid that’s adequate to meet their needs, and closing our special education gap.” 

DuBois Bourenane said that increasing the special education reimbursement for schools to 90% — to match the reimbursement already provided to private voucher schools — from the current reimbursement rate of about 33% would be the “single most transformational thing” that could be done to help schools.  

“It would free up districts to be able to use their actual state aid for the things that kids really need,” DuBois Bourenane said. School districts “wouldn’t have to tax so much at the local level if they could use their state aid for the things that they’re supposed to.”

DuBois Bourenane said she hopes newly elected lawmakers with backgrounds in public education, including Joe Sheehan, a former superintendent, Angelina Cruz, a teacher and president of Racine Educators United teachers union, and Christian Phelps, who has worked for WPEN, will be able to build relationships with legislators of both parties and be able to provide “critical context” for how education bills and budgets could affect students.