Jan. 14, 2025 3:10p
(WGTD)---The Racine School Board voted Monday night to ask voters in April for authority to exceed state-mandated levy limits. It’s a move being duplicated by a record number of school districts around the state as they find it difficult if not impossible to keep operating without having to make drastic cuts.
Monday night’s vote by the Racine board was unanimous.
Board member Ally Docksey said she probably wouldn’t have supported such a referendum had it been proposed several years ago. “Whether it’s deserved or not, there are a lot of people in the community that don’t believe the district historically has managed the money that it has well,” she said. “I would say if this was being put forth several years ago, I would not have supported it because I would not have believed that the district leadership at the time would’ve been responsible with that money the way it should’ve been.”
But Docksey supports a referendum now, saying she has complete confidence in new Superintendent Soren Gajewski.
The referendum, if approved, would result in a one-time, $70 increase in property taxes on a home assessed at $200,000.
Without approval, the district will have to make $24 million in cuts next fall, a move Gajewski described as “frightening.”
To make ends meet this year, the board already made $20 million in cuts and eliminated 150 positions. Many of those positions had been funded by federal COVID relief dollars.
School Board President Jane Barbian has been bringing up the referendum topic with her constituents. She concedes some are skeptical, especially those with no kids in the district. “And I say (to them) but you’re a taxpayer. You are educating your future employees—the people you will deal with and hopefully people who will take up a profession and stay in our community and make it a better place.”
State aid that isn’t keeping up with inflation is cited as the main culprit in the district’s budget jam.
During the public comments portion of the meeting, State Representative Greta Neubauer of Racine, who leads Democrats in the Assembly, had a few things to say about state aid. “I will apologize on behalf of the state legislature because we should be doing a better job in funding our schools so that districts do not need to go to referendum,” she said. “But unfortunately, a record number of districts around the state are going to referendum because the state is simply not keeping up its end of the bargain.”
As it enters discussion on a new biennial budget, the legislature is sitting on a nearly $5 billion surplus.
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