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Seventy-two Wisconsin school districts are going to referendum in April seeking just over $1 billion from taxpayers at a time when voters indicate they are less likely to support increased funding for schools. 

A record high 60% of registered voters said reducing property taxes was more important than increasing spending on public schools, according to the recent Marquette University Law School poll conducted in February. Fifty-seven percent of voters in the same poll said they would vote against a school referendum, same as October, but a reversal from six years ago when 57% said they would support one. 

The public concern about property taxes creates an especially difficult environment this year for the school districts seeking financial approvals from voters. Sixty-two districts are pursuing operational referendums this spring, according to data from the Department of Public Instruction. Operational questions ask voters to approve whether school districts can increase taxes to pay for things such as educational programs, technology and transportation services. 

The rest of the referendums in April would allow districts to borrow money for capital construction projects. Two districts, Howard-Suamico and Sauk Prairie, are asking voters to approve both capital and operational referendums. 

Approval rates for districts have declined since 2018, according to research from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. A record number of school districts proposed referendum questions to voters in 2024, but the 70% approval rate was the lowest passage rate for referendums in a midterm or presidential election year since 2014. More than 20% of the districts going to referendum this April are returning to voters after failed referendums in 2025. 

In the meantime, debates continue at the Capitol over state funding for public schools. Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders are expected to continue negotiating over how to use the state’s $2.4 billion surplus and what amount should be used to lower property taxes and support public schools. Just last week, a group of Wisconsin parents, four teacher unions and five school districts sued the Legislature arguing it’s failing to fund public schools. The Necedah Area School District, one of the plaintiffs in the case, is asking voters in April to approve a $5.8 million operational referendum across the next four school years. 

Meanwhile, Wisconsin school districts continue to battle with the financial impacts of declining enrollments and rising costs as district leaders say state funding they receive has not kept up with inflation. The Appleton Area School District is seeking a $60 million operating referendum spread out over the next four years, which would fund efforts to help students struggling with poverty and mental health issues and plug a $13 million operating deficit that formed over three years of high inflation rates that outpaced available funding, Superintendent Greg Hartjes said. 

“Certainly the timing is not good,” Hartjes said of Appleton’s operating referendum. “But it is because of that three years of high inflation that we can’t sustain another year. If we don’t pass a referendum, we are going to cut $13 million from our budget next year. And that’s a lot of services for kids.” 

Why a school district goes to referendum

The two main sources of revenue for Wisconsin school districts are state funding and property taxes. In 1993, Wisconsin lawmakers put limits on how much school districts can increase funding from those two revenue sources. State law allows districts to go to referendum to ask voters to exceed the revenue limits with additional property taxes. 

“It sometimes gets talked about as if it’s a fluke, or if it necessarily means that something bad is happening. That isn’t always the case,” said Sara Shaw, the deputy research director at the Wisconsin Policy Forum. “You might have an instance where a local community says, ‘Actually we’re fine with this. You tax us more. We have the means to be taxed more and we have the desire to fund education more.’” 

School district revenue limits were connected to inflation until 2009, during the Great Recession, when a Democratic-controlled Legislature and Democratic governor chose to decouple them. Since then, as Republicans took control of state government in 2011, state education spending has not kept pace with inflation or the national average, according to the Policy Forum. 

In recent years, the lack of inflationary increases to revenue limits and declining school district enrollment are among the main reasons why districts have gone to referendum, said Dan Rossmiller, the executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

“At the same time, your fixed costs, such as transportation, heating, lighting, insurance, health insurance for your employees and the salaries of your employees and the portion you pay toward their retirement are all coming up generally,” Rossmiller said. “So that puts school districts in a bit of a vice.” 

The Wisconsin Rapids School District, which is asking voters to support a $19 million operating referendum over the next five years, is one of those examples. The district has an existing five-year operating referendum approved in 2021 that expires this school year, but was boosted by pandemic-related funds that are no longer available. Inflation, rising insurance costs and declining enrollment have put the district in a difficult position, said Wisconsin Rapids Superintendent Ronald Rasmussen. 

“The district is in a situation now where our expenses exceed our revenue,” Rasmussen said. 

But referendums are about compromise, Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Birchwood, said at a February meeting of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee. It’s also not just schools that are feeling the impacts of inflation, Quinn said. 

“There isn’t anybody in their family budget, a local entity unit of government or state government that can afford to keep up with the inflation that we’ve had to endure over the last four to six years,” Quinn said.

What about the 400-year veto?

During the 2023-25 state budget process, Evers used the governor’s veto powers to provide an annual $325 per pupil increase to school district revenue limits for 400 years.

Republicans have repeatedly slammed the veto and advanced proposals seeking to limit the governor’s partial veto powers in the future. In February, the Legislature added to the November ballot a constitutional amendment to prevent the governor from using veto powers to increase taxes or fees. It’s unclear if the proposed language would have affected the 400-year veto because the veto didn’t directly increase taxes or fees. Instead, it gave school districts more discretion to increase property taxes.

School leaders say they’re appreciative of the revenue authority coming from the 400-year veto, but it doesn’t make up for the lack of consistent inflationary increases since 2009. Districts are also still dependent on how the Legislature acts on revenue limits or general state aid. 

“The more state aid we get means we get less property taxes,” Rasmussen said. “And this year, the revenue limit changed by $325, but the aid we got from the state that line stayed the same, so the difference was made up by local property taxes.” 

Hartjes and Rasmussen said they are approaching frustration about property taxes by trying to inform residents about the basics of school funding, being transparent with potential voters about district finances and breaking down the cost of the referendum on a typical home in their community. 

Districts across the state that are going to referendum this spring are holding similar information sessions to answer questions from potential voters and creating webpages for people seeking more information. 

It’s not an easy task, especially as the cost of living remains the top issue for Wisconsin voters this year. 

“Your price of everything else that you have to buy as a consumer is difficult,” Hartjes said. “And then to ask to have your property taxes raised? We understand the challenge for families.”

The election is April 7. Early voting starts March 24.

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Brittany Carloni joined Wisconsin Watch as the state government and politics reporter in September 2025. She returned home to Wisconsin after more than eight years away from the Badger State. During that time, she reported on local government at the Naples Daily News in southwest Florida and covered local, state and federal government and politics at the Indianapolis Star. Brittany is originally from the Milwaukee area and holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marquette University.