Superior Asks Community to Invest In Public Schools
On Nov. 5, the school district community members will be asked if they will invest in Superior’s public schools with a five-year tax levy. Property taxes would increase an additional $7 a year per $100,000 property value for the first two years. In years 3-5, homeowners would see an average increase of $24 per $100,000 in property value per year.
If passed, the operational referendum will help maintain current class sizes and staffing levels, keep current district programs and fund critical building maintenance. If the referendum were to fail, the school district would have to make more significant cuts to staff, increase class sizes, and reduce curricular and extracurricular programming.
Why Is the School District Going to Have An Operational Referendum?
The last several months, the School District of Superior has made every effort to ensure a balanced 2024-2025 school-year budget. Even after closing a school and making significant reductions, students still have the same high-quality education and opportunities. Due to a lack of state funding that has not kept up with school expense inflation, Superior is projecting a $2 million deficit heading into the 2025-2026 school year and the financial forecast looking out five more years projects even greater deficits.
“The state of Wisconsin has not properly funded public education, and this is the only solution they put out there,” said Director of Business Services David See. “If we want to maintain the high-level education that we currently provide, then we need to ask the community to support public education by asking them if they want to support this by going to referendum. We will still exist as a school district no matter what, we will just exist differently.”
The School District of Superior is one of the 15% of school districts in the state of Wisconsin that has not asked their community for an operational referendum to address this statewide issue. The district has worn it as a badge of honor for many years, but things have to change. To tackle this potential deficit, the district surveyed the community to see if they would support a potential operational referendum and the majority was in favor of supporting it.
Previous referendums, like the one in 2016, was a capital referendum which helped the district build the new Cooper Elementary School and make building upgrades. Capital referendums are for specific projects, while operational referendums are for day-to-day expenses such as salaries and utilities.
The District Has Never Gone to A Referendum In the Past, Why Now?
For the last 5-10 years the district has made reductions every year depending on the staffing needs at each building and the number of enrolled students. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Wisconsin did not keep up with inflation and said the district is not getting any increases. As of September 2024, federal ESSER dollars are gone. Right now, the district cannot continue to operate unless we ask for help. This operational referendum would allow the district to keep up staffing levels, extracurricular programs and continue to have small class sizes. Eighty percent of expenses lie in salary and benefits. Fiscal responsibility is one of our top priorities.
What the Referendum Entails
If you own a home that is worth $100,000 your property taxes would go up an additional $7 per year for the first two years. That is only 59 cents a month. The state decides the revenue and the aid that they are going to allocate. This means that the $7 increase per $100,000 is in addition to what the state says the school district will set as the taxed amount. Currently our mill rate, which is how taxes are calculated, is significantly below the state average. For 2023 the state average was $7.70, while Superior’s mill rate was $6.79; this is 13.5% less than the state average.
“Property taxes are calculated differently than something like sales tax,” said See. “If you buy a $20 t-shirt, you’re paying 5% tax on that item, so your taxes are going up. For property taxes, the school district and all other municipalities create the amount of money that they need, and then it’s divided up based upon the assessed value of the home. So if everybody’s home goes up 100% then that means everybody’s taxes would actually stay the same from year to year. But there will be an increase, because the state has dictated that we need to increase property taxes because they will not fully fund schools. They will not provide the aid at the same percentage as they’ve done In the past. Wisconsin hasn’t helped us. We need them to fully fund public education.”
Student Enrollment Decline, A Nationwide Issue
Birth rates are down across the region and the country. The district is seeing graduating classes of 300+ students while incoming kindergarten classes are less than 250. This is not unique to Superior and schools across the region are experiencing similar challenges. Student enrollment has a direct impact on revenue. When student enrollment declines, the less money the district receives from the state. Staffing reductions have been made at all grade levels where there are less students. However, many expenses are constant regardless of the student enrollment (i.e. transportation, utilities, etc.)
Voting Information
You may find your polling place or to register to vote, by contacting the Douglas County Registrar’s office. Don’t forget that you can vote early or mail in your absentee ballots Every vote counts.
“Let’s do this together, we can change everything,” said See. “The first step is this operational referendum, to see the community support it. The next step after that is to get our legislators to see that public education becomes a priority. And if we work together, we can do it. I want my kids to have the same opportunities that everybody else has, and this referendum would just get us in line with what other school districts are doing. I don’t want my kids in a classroom with 33 other students. I like my kids in a smaller classroom, and I think everybody can relate.”
David Coy is Communications & PR Specialist for the School District of Superior.
