Support For School Funding Referendums Declining

School classroom. (Pixabay License).

In Milwaukee, a school funding referendum just barely passed, but around the state many schools districts weren’t so lucky.

There were 103 referendums on the ballot in February and April this year, but only 62 passed. It was the lowest approval rate — 60.2% — for school funding referendums during a midterm or presidential election since 2010, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

“Voter approval rates of school district referenda hovered around 50% for most of the late 2000s and early 2010s,” the report notes. “Starting in 2012, however, voters approved referenda in greater numbers, with the passage rate peaking at 89.7% in 2018.”

But since then that figure has been declining and the latest election cycle only confirmed this trend. The lower percentage this year would seem to indicate that voters are fatiguing of funding referenda.

In Milwaukee, voters narrowly approved what the policy forum called “the most notable” of the spring referendums. Fewer than 2,000 votes clinched the funding referendum, which provides the district with the ability to permanently exceed its revenue limit by $252 million over the next four years, increasing the district’s property tax levy by $127.2 million. It comes four years after voter approved an $87 million revenue limit increase. And both are the only referendums approved since the 1990s for Milwaukee according to the policy forum.

Districts across the state have increasingly gone to referendums to satisfy their funding needs. Since 2014, voters have approved an average of two referendums for each school district in the state.

During the latest election cycle, most of the referendums were seeking funding for their operating budgets. The policy forum called this “a sign of the stress they are facing from inflation, state caps on their revenues, declining enrollment, and the expiration of federal pandemic aid.”

School districts are raising revenue limits because costs are rising faster than their funding, as enrollment declines and state aid falls short of rising costs. Pandemic-era inflation only worsened this trend, as many districts increased pay for teachers to keep up with the rising cost of living and prevent a greater exodus from the profession.

Despite the flagging performance of education referendums, the policy forum concludes its report by stating that they are still being approved at high rates and for large amounts of money than prior to 2010. But the current trend would suggest this cannot last forever.

Read the full policy forum report on Urban Milwaukee.