MPS Makes the Case for Referendum

Riverwest Elementary School, 2765 N. Fratney St. File photo by Dave Reid.

The school funding referendum, less than two weeks away, is make or break for Milwaukee Public Schools, according to administrators.

MPS principals told Urban Milwaukee that for their schools the referendum is a question between maintaining their current level of staffing and resources, or budget cuts.

“A ‘Yes’ referendum is going to make our school function very similar to how it’s functioning today, and a ‘No’ referendum will change our schools significantly,” said Frank Lammers, Principal of the German Immersion School.

The district is trying to make its case with voters for an additional $252 million in funding over the next four years, with approximately $125 million coming from a property tax increase in the City of Milwaukee. The district successfully went to referendum just four years ago for an additional $87 million.

MPS, the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association and their political allies have been trying to generate support for the funding increase. The city’s powerful business lobby, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) has bankrolled an ad campaign opposing the referendum. Another opposition campaign organized by local attorney Daniel  Adams is arguing the proposed tax increase will negatively affect housing affordability.

“I would say in my tenure, as a principal, this is the most significant budget that we’ve that I have had to go through,” said Lammers, who has been principal of German Immersion School for seven years.

If the referendum fails his school will simply have less money next year than it did this year, Lammers said. His school’s arts, music and physical education teachers will go from full time to part time, he said.

The message the district is trying to put in front of voters is that the projected budget gap is more than a decade in the making; that the state has not kept funding for public education on pace with inflation and this is the outcome.

“The reality of our state is that Wisconsin has just been underfunding its kids for a very long time,” said Chris Thiel, MPS legislative policy manager, “but certainly relative to inflation for the last 16 years.”

This trend was exacerbated when inflation skyrocketed during the pandemic and education spending largely stayed the same, Thiel said. He also pointed to a 2021 warning from the U.S. Department of Education that told the state it was budgeting so little for public education that it was ineligible for $1.5 billion in COVID-19 related funding for school districts.

A significant chunk of the projected budget deficit for MPS is created by the district’s hiring expectations, as the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan think tank has reported. The district has been “successfully implementing our plan to bring more teachers into our schools,” Thiel said.

Critics of the proposed referendum have questioned whether MPS has demonstrated a need for all of these teachers, especially with district enrollment declining year over year.

“Based on the district’s strategic plan, the referendum will help support the status quo, not allowing the district to seriously restructure and downsize to meet its future needs and provide greater resources to all MPS students,” said William Andrekopoulos, a former MPS superintendent. He made this point in an op-ed arguing the property tax increases will worsen Milwaukee’s affordable housing crisis. “Based on the district’s strategic plan, the referendum will help support the status quo, not allowing the district to seriously restructure and downsize to meet its future needs and provide greater resources to all MPS students,” he wrote.

At Samuel Clemens School, Principal Garry Lawson said the project budget gaps would force him to cut teaching staff for the first time in the seven years he’s been a principal. “If the referendum doesn’t pass, I have to cut $245,000 from my school budget,” he said.

Like Lammers at the German Immersion School, this could mean arts and physical education goes from full-time educators to part time. It also means he would have to get rid of his schools leadership team, he said. These administrators focus on closing the achievement gap, instruction and the school’s climate. He might lose these team members, Lawson said, but district expectations that he advances student achievement and closes the achievement gap will remain.

“It’s not going to change our enrollment,” Lawson said of the projected cuts. “But it’s going to change the support we have to help students.”