{"id":13240,"date":"2024-10-08T17:03:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T17:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=13240"},"modified":"2024-10-08T21:02:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T21:02:29","slug":"wisconsin-school-district-asks-taxpayers-for-additional-124-4-million-in-referendums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=13240","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin School District Asks Taxpayers for Additional $124.4 Million in Referendums"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-school-district-asks-taxpayers-for-additional-124-4-million-in-referendums\/tcsquare\/2024\/10\/08\/<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
by Jon Styf<\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Wauwatosa School District is asking voters to approve a pair of referendums worth $124.4 million on the Nov. 5 ballot.<\/p>\n

But a taxpayer advocacy group\u00a0believes 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

The group points to a reported\u00a0$4 million budget mistake<\/a>\u00a0by the district as a sign of mismanagement.<\/p>\n

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

State law caps how much a district can increase its property tax levy without voter approval. The district had 110 less resident students last year than it did in 2017-18.<\/p>\n

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

\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\u00a0the 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

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter of The Center Square<\/a> who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Wisconsin School District Asks Taxpayers for Additional $124.4 Million in Referendums<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-school-district-asks-taxpayers-for-additional-124-4-million-in-referendums\/tcsquare\/2024\/10\/08\/ by Jon Styf \u00a0 The Wauwatosa School District is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13241,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240\/revisions\/13241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}