{"id":13216,"date":"2024-10-08T17:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T17:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=13216"},"modified":"2024-10-08T17:58:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T17:58:19","slug":"wauwatosa-schools-referendums-taxpayers-asked-for-additional-124-4-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=13216","title":{"rendered":"Wauwatosa Schools Referendums: Taxpayers Asked For Additional $124.4 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wauwatosa-schools-referendums\/\">https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wauwatosa-schools-referendums\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1068\" height=\"713\" src=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/MixCollage-08-Oct-2024-12-37-PM-1971.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Wauwatosa Schools Referendums\" title=\"Wauwatosa Schools Referendums\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(The Center Square) \u2013 The Wauwatosa School District is asking voters to approve a pair of referendums worth $124.4 million on the Nov. 5 ballot.<\/p>\n<p>But a taxpayer advocacy group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tosataxpayersalliance.com\/facts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">believes the district<\/a>, with declining enrollment, should \u201cright-size\u201d its current budget rather than using a referendum to spend more taxpayer money. The group pointed toward a second planned referendum in 2026 as part of a cycle of tax increases that it believes needs to end.<\/p>\n<p>The group points to a reported <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisn.com\/article\/wauwatosa-schools-admits-to-dollar4-million-error-in-poorly-built-budget\/61952422\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$4 million budget mistake<\/a> by the district as a sign of mismanagement.<\/p>\n<p>The district\u2019s two proposals include $16.1 million per year for four years to fund operational expenses such as salaries and benefits and a $60 million referendum for maintenance and capital projects at Eisenhower, Madison, Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Washington elementary schools, Montessori\/Fisher and Wauwatosa East and West high schools.<\/p>\n<p>State law caps how much a district can increase its property tax levy without voter approval.<\/p>\n<p>The district says the first referendum includes $52.4 million to maintain class sizes and academic programs, $8 million to increase teacher compensation and $4 million to update curriculum and materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause state funding has not kept pace with inflation, the District is facing a budget shortfall of $9.3 million for the 2024-25 school year \u2013 and $61 million over the next five years,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wauwatosa.k12.wi.us\/page\/2024-referendum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the district said<\/a>. \u201cThe District plans to use its fund balance to fill this budget gap for the 2024-25 school year. However, this is not a sound long-term financial strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/wauwatosa-schools-referendums\/ (The Center Square) \u2013 The Wauwatosa School District is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":13218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13219,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13216\/revisions\/13219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}