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School funding remains a topic of great debate, complexity, and without a viable, long-term solution. Legislators have yet to resolve the fundamental problem with school funding. For the last two years, schools across Wisconsin received a 0% increase in per pupil revenue.
Meanwhile, our operating costs (the amount of money it takes to maintain our current programs and staff) are increasing at an increasingly rapid rate. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, between the 2009-10 and 2018-19 school years, inflation rose 17%. At the same time, the average state-wide revenue limit grew by only 6%.
In addition, the cost to retain and attract high-quality staff continues to grow. Our teachers and staff are dedicated to the success of each and every student in our schools. Wages have been tied to inflationary increases and Monona Grove wages are below the Dane County average. It is not possible to fully align our teacher salaries with the private sector or with our K-12 peers in Dane County, but this operational referendum may provide an opportunity to offer more competitive pay.
This is the reality of how deeply state funding affects our budget. Forty-two percent of our budget comes from the state. Our costs to provide the same programming continue to increase but when we receive no new spendable state funding, it leads to a significant structural budget deficit.
For many communities, including Monona Grove, an operating referendum offers a solution to manage funding gaps while keeping 100% of referendum tax dollars in the district and aligned with community expectations for their local schools. We are not alone. Seven of the 16 school districts in Dane County passed an operational referendum in November 2022, another two (including MG) will vote on an operational referendum this spring.
The School Board has authorized a recurring referendum, meaning it is ongoing. In prior years we have used non-recurring referenda to offset budget deficits, with the hope that the state would prioritize school funding in future years. However, Wisconsin’s spending on education is now below the national average and falling (5.6% below the national average in 2020, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum). In 2002, Wisconsin’s education spending ranked 11th among the 50 states; in 2020 we were ranked 25th. The caps on school revenues in the 2021-23 state budget likely led to a further slide in that ranking, with some estimates putting Wisconsin near 30th in the nation in school funding.
Because the money from this referendum would be used toward maintaining ongoing costs like operations and compensation (nearly 70% of our budget goes toward staffing), a recurring referendum would provide more consistency and stability not only for taxpayers in our community but also for the district, our staff and students.
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