State GOP takes aim at school referendums
Control sought on funding measures
Since 1990, Wisconsin school districts have passed more than 1,600 referendums totaling $12 billion — more than half of that in the last decade — pushing up local property taxes to pay for capital projects, maintain and expand programs and services, and finance costly retirement benefits.
During the last legislative session, a group of Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) aimed what amounted to a BB gun at the issue: a single bill that would have limited when and how frequently a district could go to referendum. They missed.
Now they’re back, this time with a shotgun.
Stroebel and seven other lawmakers this week introduced a slate of bills that would attack referendums on a number of fronts, from limiting them to spring and fall general elections to cutting state aid for districts that pass ballot measures for extra operating revenue.
Lawmakers defended the measures as common-sense practices that increase transparency and empower voters by bringing more of them into the referendum process.
“There’s nothing punitive here. You can still have referenda,” said Stroebel, an Ozaukee County developer and former school board member who has championed property tax relief since he first joined the Legislature in 2011.
But public school advocates see the bills as an assault on local control that would be felt hardest in lower-spending, less affluent districts, many of which are already losing state and local funding because of declining enrollment.
“Our local communities and local voters know what’s best for their local school districts and students,” Dan Rossmiller, director of governmental relations for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
“Ever since revenue limits were imposed ... lawmakers have said, if a board feels they don’t have enough funding, they could always ask their voters to approve a referendum to exceed the revenue limit,” he said. “Now ... they are pulling back from that pledge.”
The proposals
The bills would:
Eliminate so-called recurring referendums for operating expenses — those that raise taxes indefinitely — and cap nonrecurring referendums at five years.
Dock a district’s state aid by an amount equal to 20% of whatever it generates in an operating referendum. So, if voters approve, say, $5 million, the district loses $1 million in aid.
Require all referendum questions be placed on a spring or fall general election.
Limit when school districts can decide to go to referendum. A school board could vote on an operating referendum only during a regularly scheduled board meeting and on a debt issue only at the annual meeting where the tax levy is set.
Require districts to disclose the costs of debt service and interest payments on any debt issue.
Provide a 50% match for district funds placed in a longterm capital improvement trust fund, called Fund 46, to encourage cash financing of maintenance and construction projects.
Wisconsin school districts have increasingly turned to referendums — to raise operating funds and take on debt for capital projects — as their budgets were squeezed by a combination of revenue caps, declining enrollments and hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to state aid in recent years.
Last year alone, voters agreed to borrow $1.35 billion for capital projects, 10 times more than in 2011 and the most since 1993, according to the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. Similarly, there were 71 requests to exceed revenue caps last year, up from an average 41 annually between 2009 and 2013.
Stroebel’s office authored three of the bills as part of what he calls a referendum reform initiative. Sen. Chris Kapenga of Delafield and Reps. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls and Michael Schraa of Oshkosh each wrote one. Lawmakers who agreed to introduce the bills are Reps. Thomas Weatherston of Caledonia, Joe Sanfelippo of New Berlin, David Murphy of Greenville and John Macco of Ledgeview.
The reform efforts follow an unsuccessful attempt by Stroebel and Schraa in the last session to limit school referendums to the regularly scheduled fall and spring election dates, when voter turnout tends to be higher, and to bar districts from going back to taxpayers with a new referendum for two years after one failed.
Opposition mounting
Those bills faced intense opposition at public hearings and did not come up for a final vote before lawmakers adjourned in February. The new slate could find a more receptive audience, as the Senate has shifted to the right. But public opposition is already mounting. And even some Republican lawmakers have raised reservations.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t see that the system is broken,” said Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), who chairs the Senate Education Committee.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said in an email that he supports the right of school districts to go to referendum.
“I’m open to ways to make the process better, and I’ll consider the bills as long as they stick to that philosophy,” he said.
Democrats were more critical.
“If we restored the $1 billion in state aid that Republicans cut from local schools over the past six years, many communities wouldn’t need to rely on these referendums year after year,” said Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse.
Public school advocates take issue with the measures. Eliminating recurring operating referendums and capping operating increases to five years, they say, would force districts into endless cycles of referendums to avoid cutting programs. Cutting state aid punishes voters for investing in schools, and funding large construction projects with cash isn’t practical, they say.
“There’s no way you could come up with $120 million to build a high school. You’d have to save so long the building would cost $200 million,” said Andy Chromy, director of finance and operations for the West AllisWest Milwaukee School District, where voters shot down a $12.5 million referendum this month.
Stroebel said the idea is to redistribute those state dollars to districts that are living within their means.
“If local taxpayers want to put more toward their schools, there’s nothing to prevent that. But the state aid we provide will now be disbursed to other districts that are not doing referenda,” Stroebel said.
Stroebel, who has numerous real estate holdings in Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties, said the legislative push has nothing to do with his business interests. His office also dismissed as outdated criticisms by the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now that he benefited from a federal farm subsidy and paid no income taxes in 2009 and ’10.
“This is public service, this job . ... I’m interested in how policy impacts the entire state,” said Stroebel, who characterized those who question his motives as “cheap.”
“Some people in the education establishment don’t like these bills. If they don’t like them, you have to wonder if what they’re really trying to do is trick taxpayers.”