MPS considers referendum for funding
Over the last 20 years, nearly every school district in southeastern Wisconsin — and all but one in Milwaukee County — has gone to a referendum in an effort to raise additional tax dollars for K-12 education in their communities.
More than 180 ballot questions have passed, raising an additional $2.8 billion for an expansive array of wants and needs — new and remodeled buildings, swimming pools, community centers, even additional operating cash and shoring up pensions and benefits.
Milwaukee Public Schools is one of just a handful of districts in the region that have not turned to the ballot box to bolster their schools. But that may be about to change.
For the first time since the 1990s, MPS officials are openly talking about the prospect of going to referendum. It’s still early. The proposed dollar figure and purposes — operating expenses vs. capital projects, or some mix of both — have yet to be determined. But board members and administrators are beginning to lay the groundwork for a campaign to make their case to the voters.
The goal, supporters say, is to get the question on the spring 2020 ballot to take advantage of the large Democratic turnout expected for the presidential primary.
There will likely be at least some opposition, from those who think Milwaukee taxes are already too high or fear the impact on its poorest residents, and perennial critics who question whether MPS has been a good steward of its existing dollars.
But with state-imposed revenue limits and a decline in federal funding, supporters say it’s their only option for improving the quality of education for MPS’ nearly 76,000 students, most of whom are low-income children of color.
“We’re at a stage now where we’ve had austerity budgets for eight to 10 years ... and that has had a cumulative, negative impact on the services that children in Milwaukee receive,” said first-term at-large board member Bob Peterson, who ran this year in part on the need for a referendum.
At this point, he said, the discussion is primarily around an operating referendum that would allow MPS to hire more teachers, librarians, counselors and other key staff; restore programming; and lower class sizes.
“We have no choice other than to starve our students of the things they deserve or ask taxpayers to step up and help out,” he said.
Last week, board members approved two no-bid contracts totaling nearly $60,000 for consultants to work on the plan. Robert W. Baird & Co., a major player in the financing of school referendums, will be paid up to $11,000 to analyze the fiscal impact on MPS’ state aid and tax levy. And Donovan Group, a communications firm, will earn up to $48,400 to develop a “community engagement strategy.”
In recent months, Peterson has been quietly meeting with stakeholders — religious and civic organizations, business leaders, labor groups, politicians at the state and local level. The response has been positive, he says, though he declined to name individuals.
Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton said he is supportive, as are many members of MICAH, the Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope, said its president, the Rev. Marilyn Miller of Reformation Lutheran Church. After repeated requests to speak with Mayor Tom Barrett about the issue, his office issued a statement saying, “The Mayor hasn’t seen any particulars about any proposals.”
As for any potential pushback, questions are already being raised among some school choice advocates who have been critical of MPS’ academic performance; its resistance to state-mandated reform efforts; and its defensive posture toward independent charter and private voucher schools it sees as competing for students and funding.
“This is not 1992 when 100% of the publicly funded students in Milwaukee attended MPS,” said Tim Sheehy, president of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce.
“Today, we have 44% of students using public resources to go to independent charter and choice programs. So what’s important is that we look at the resources we’re dedicating to education,” he said.
“I’m not closing the door to a proposed referendum. But there would be a lot of convincing that would need to happen in terms of the direction the district is going.”
Will Flanders, research director for the conservative public interest law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, said MPS is already one of the top 10 funded districts in the state, spending about $15,000 per student when you factor in federal dollars for such things as special education.
“And there’s evidence that more money past a certain threshold point isn’t necessarily going to be the answer,” he said.
‘Schools our children deserve’
MPS is the state’s largest district, with more than 75,000 students in 159 schools. They run the gamut from traditional public schools to public charters, Montessori and other specialty schools that focus on the arts, languages, trades and more.
Compared with its surrounding suburban districts and the state as a whole, MPS’ students are far more likely to be black or brown, to live in poverty, to be diagnosed with a disability or to be learning English as a second language — all factors that tend to make education more costly.
Its budget is almost $1.2 billion a year, about a fifth of that in 2018 coming from local property taxes.
In 2018, MPS was the second-highest component on the Milwaukee tax bill, accounting for about 34 cents of every dollar, compared with 38 cents for city services. But while the tax levy for city services has risen almost 11% since 2013, MPS’ has fallen 16.4% to about $250.4 million last year.
Like other districts that have gone to referendum, MPS blames the state’s revenue limits — caps on the amount of money schools can raise from state general funds and local property taxpayers — in large part for its financial challenges. The caps have not kept pace with inflation in recent years. And because of the way the caps were imposed, they argue, MPS can raise less per pupil than its peers in many surrounding suburbs.
As the district’s costs have risen, with no increase in the caps, MPS has cut programming and staff, particularly in the “specials,” such as libraries, physical education and the arts, creating stark disparities among schools across the district, and between MPS and its suburban neighbors. And supporters believe an operating referendum is one way to begin to remedy that.
The MPS efforts come as social justice advocates across the country, including faith-based and labor organizations, are advocating for more funding for public schools — particularly those serving low-income and minority students — under the banner of “Schools all our Children Deserve.”
MPS is in the process of quantifying what that might look like, and later this year, it plans to hold a series of community meetings to narrow the priorities. The expectation is that the referendum amount would be far less than what it would actually cost. The goal, supporters say, is to bring the educational experience for MPS students more in line with that of their peers in surrounding suburban communities.
“If you go to Glendale-River Hills, those students get regular physical education, the arts; they get programming that really serves those children. And they deserve it,” said MPS board President Larry Miller. “But so do our kids.”
Crushing defeat
The last time MPS went to referendum, it was 1993. It went down like a ton of bricks.
“We were crushed,” said then-Superintendent Howard Fuller, who had lobbied hard for voters to approve a $366 million bond issue for new buildings and maintenance.
At that time, MMAC supported the referendum, said Sheehy, because it believed Fuller, a longtime school choice advocate, had a solid plan for reforming education in Milwaukee. There was broad support among community organizations and leaders. But then-Mayor John Norquist opposed it, igniting a bitter battle with Fuller and his board.
The debate over the referendum was racially charged. And the final vote, driven by an unprecedented turnout among white, older and more conservative voters, “broke down sharply along neighborhood and racial lines,” according to a Milwaukee Journal story at the time.
“I had a white woman put her finger in my face and tell me they were not going to build schools for lazy black women on the north side,” said Fuller. “I’ve got a lot of scars from that referendum.”
To this day, Fuller feels betrayed by Norquist’s opposition. But in hindsight, he says, it was one of many factors that doomed the referendum: voter frustration over years of tax increases for schools and the realization that they would soon be on the hook for a new baseball stadium; racial animus; conservative talk radio; and then-President Bill Clinton’s announcement on the eve of the vote that he planned to raise federal taxes.
“It was a lot of stuff,” Fuller said. The resounding defeat and the rhetoric that surrounded it had a lasting effect, dissuading school officials from even seriously considering another
“I had a white woman put her finger in my face and tell me they were not going to build schools for lazy black women on the north side. I’ve got a lot of scars from that referendum.”
Howard Fuller Former MPS superintendent
referendum.
Twenty-six years later, race will almost certainly be an issue in any proposed referendum, said Fuller and others.
But supporters are optimistic that other changes in the city — the decline in the older white population, the increase in the minority population, primarily Hispanic residents, and the tendency of voters to skew even more Democratic — would help them at the polls.
“I believe racism will be a factor,” said Miller. “But I hope the Milwaukee community is much more enlightened and that they would ... want to support our kids.”
Norquist, who now lives in Chicago, stands by his decision not to back the 1993 referendum, saying it was too much money at one time for a stale building plan that would not have advanced education in the city. Instead, the city, which owns MPS’ buildings, began pouring millions of dollars into capital improvement in the years that followed.
For what it’s worth, he said, he would be much more open — if he were still here — to a referendum that let Milwaukee exceed its revenue caps to raise additional dollars for operations.
“That’s for a good cause. That’s a really reasonable thing for them to ask for,” said Norquist, who stepped down in 2014 as head of the Congress for the New Urbanism. “That’s a whole different issue. They’re talking about quality of education.”