New campaign urges voting against MPS referendum
Milwaukee residents will start seeing an ads urging them to vote no on a proposed Milwaukee Public Schools referendum.
The effort, “Enough is Enough Vote No,” is led by a committee backed by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. It says the April 2 referendum would increase property taxes by 30% and that the district has wasted almost a billion dollars in new taxpayer funding in the last four years. Ads started airing on local TV and radio stations Tuesday and will continue until the election, according to the committee’s news release. Digital and direct-mail ads are also part of the campaign.
Milwaukee Public Schools are asking for a $252 million referendum that, if approved, would provide an additional $140 million in 2024-25; $51 million in 2025-26; $47 million in 2026-27 and $14 million in 2027-28. The referendum would raise school taxes by an estimated additional $2.16 per $1,000 of property value.
“Increasing taxes while Milwaukee families are paying more for everything — from gas to groceries — is simply wrong. Enough is enough,” MMAC President Dale Kooyenga said in the committee’s news release. “This referendum would result in an unaffordable property tax hike that will hit homeowners and renters directly in the pocket. Milwaukee Public Schools have wasted almost a billion dollars in new taxpayer funding in the last four years, including funds from a previous tax hike in 2020. Because of that, voters should vote no on April 2nd.”
MPS released a statement in response to the campaign Wednesday, saying in part: “Our families and community members understand the positive impacts public schools have on our neighborhoods and children and MPS is confident in their support.”
In a phone interview with the Journal Sentinel, Kooyenga said the group is concerned for people trying to buy homes, keep their homes, or even paying rent in the city.
Kooyenga said the MMAC has done “a lot of work” with the district, citing as an example the group’s work with Bradley Tech and Barack Obama High School on automation curriculum.
“So we’re very committed to seeing success with Milwaukee Public Schools,” he said. “We just don’t see this quarter billion dollar increase really having a robust plan associated with it.
The “Enough is Enough Vote No” campaign’s website said MPS has received close to $1.2 billion in additional funding, including $87 million from the district’s 2020 referendum, federal ESSER funds of $770 million and more than $38.5 million in per-pupil funding increases plus more in special education funding and categorical aid increases.
“Attendance has decreased, test scores have not increased and there’s no metric that shows that there’s been any progress made,” Kooyenga said in the interview.
Kooyenga said the decision to oppose the referendum was made by MMAC’s 85-member board, which he said came after listening to MPS superintendent Keith Posley and other educational experts talk about the referendum. He said MMAC’s education committee made a recommendation to the full board and the full board decided to oppose the referendum.
Kooyenga said MMAC would work with MPS to advocate to the state Legislature for increased special education funding. He also suggested the district consider its real estate footprint, and be more efficient with the property it has.
Kooyenga said there are also cases where a referendum could work.
“If it was a $50 million referendum, we would not be opposed. I can almost guarantee you, a $50 million referendum, maybe even an $88 million referendum — I don’t know where we’d be on that. But a quarter billion dollar referendum nearly three times as large as the last referendum? That’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money,” Kooyenga said. “When you’re asking the stakeholders of Milwaukee to invest that much money, we feel like there has to be a more robust plan of where that money is going.”
MMAC joins Milwaukee attorney Dan Adams in opposing the referendum. Adams last month started a political action committee opposed to the referendum.
MPS said it needs the referendum funding, otherwise it faces a $200 million budget shortfall. Without the funding, MPS says it would have to make cuts to staff, programming and services.
In an emailed statement, Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Ingrid Walker-Henry called the campaign “a continuation of Kooyenga’s career of attacking the majority Black and brown families of MPS — families who want and deserve the same opportunities provided to children in wealthier districts like Brookfield, where Kooyenga lives.
“For over 10 years in the legislature, Republican Dale Kooyenga not only authored a failed takeover attempt of Milwaukee Public Schools, he voted in lockstep with Scott Walker to make the historic cuts that defunded MPS and forced public schools throughout Wisconsin to rely on referenda to maintain services for children,” Walker-Henry said in the statement.
In its statement, Milwaukee Public Schools pointed to the factors that have led dozens of districts across Wisconsin to go to referendum — “a steady defunding of public schools by the state since 2009, a complete funding freeze for two years, and record inflation.”
If approved, the referendum would raise school taxes by an estimated additional $2.16 per $1,000 of property value, which would be a $432 increase in school taxes for the owner of a $200,000 home. That would bring the school tax rate from $7.94 per $1,000 (tax of $1,588 for a $200,000 home) to $10.10 per $1,000 of property value next year (a tax of $2,020 for a $200,000 home).
Reporter Rory Linnane contributed to this report.