{"id":15379,"date":"2025-02-19T02:17:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T03:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15379"},"modified":"2025-02-19T03:57:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T03:57:51","slug":"mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15379","title":{"rendered":"Mauston School District Voters Raise Their Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2025\/02\/18\/mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes\">https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2025\/02\/18\/mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.maustonschools.org\/district\/2024-operational-referendum.cfm\">Sigh\u2026 and people wonder why Wisconsin is still a tax hell<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MaustonReferendumResults.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-23561\" src=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MaustonReferendumResults.png\" alt width=\"338\" height=\"528\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s something worth pointing out. Remember that the Mauston School District put this exact same referendum on the November 5th ballot \u2013 a high-turnout presidential election where one could get the input of the most voters. In that election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrjc.com\/news\/local-news\/school-district-referendum-results\/\">the referendum failed<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Mauston School District Operational Referendum<\/p>\n<p>No 2,635 Yes 2,566<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Notice the vote total. 5,201 voters. 5,201.<\/p>\n<p>The school district turns around and put the exact same referendum on the February ballot \u2013 one of the historically absolute lowest turnout elections Wisconsin has. Why? Because it\u2019s a non-partisan primary election with very little on the ballot and immediately after a presidential election where there is voter fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>The turnout today?<\/p>\n<p>3,078<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s 40% fewer voters<\/p>\n<p>We need referendum reform at the state level to prevent predatory school districts from shopping for low-turnout elections to get unpopular referendums passed. Three simple reforms would make a huge difference:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A school district can only ask for a referendum once per board election. This is usually every 2 years, but sometimes once a year. That way the same elected board can\u2019t keep going back to the well without facing the voters.<\/li>\n<li>A referendum that is rejected by the voters may not be resubmitted in the same form to the voters withing 5 years.<\/li>\n<li>Operational referendums are only valid for one board cycle. Then they must be resubmitted to the voters for continuance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span class=\"et_social_bottom_trigger\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2025\/02\/18\/mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mauston-school-district-voters-raise-their-taxes Sigh\u2026 and people wonder why Wisconsin is still a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boots-sabers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15382,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379\/revisions\/15382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}