MONROE — On the heels of a failed operating referendum, no apparent public appetite for another, and about $1 million already cut from last year’s budget, the school board is considering cutting that much or more to plug a budget gap they ultimately blame on lax state spending on education.

Among cuts that are on the table — and very likely — for the School District of Monroe Board of Education at its Jan. 27 meeting is elimination of the German language program, eliminating bus transportation for summer school students, and slashing a special education teacher and two special education aides. (About 1,000 students participate in summer school; and of those about 300 take the bus).

The move comes even as the district is spending $88 million for a new high school that is taking shape on the northeast edge of town, and improvements to Abe Lincoln Elementary. In fact, some have blamed the operating referendum’s loss largely on taxpayers weary from the extended effort to win approval for the high school project. And district officials say that surveys of voters in the district largely bear that out.

In August, the board agreed to advance a four-year, non-recurring operational referendum worth $1.5 million per year to voters to avoid more cuts. But in November it failed, solidly. The district previously passed an operational referendum in 2016, and extended it in 2018. And theirs was on the ballot again last fall, among 137 districts statewide that were forced to seek more money from the local tax base. 

Rich Deprez, the board’s president, has laid the blame for the crisis in education funding squarely at the feet of the legislature, which is sitting on billions in surplus revenue.

“The simple fact again is that the public schools are not funded properly by the legislatures,” Deprez said last month, forcing districts to rely more on local taxpayers “Our community, while happy with the outcomes (of the district), are not supportive of funding them.”

Indeed, they have not given up on another operating referendum — just one in the short term. The reason, the board discussed at the meeting, is that without trying again to pass an operational referendum in the future, they will face potentially those same level of cuts repeatedly. 

The board eyed three tiers of cuts at the Monday meeting, with the first totaling $874,400, the second tier, $280,000 and the third, $340,000. If, for example, the board went to the third tier of cuts, that would result in the elimination of four full-time equivalent positions.

But many of the positions in the first tier have already been eliminated, or will be achieved by attrition. Moreover, the state budget process remains a wild card as the board seeks to bridge the time with its cash reserves and big cuts until it can ask for an operational referendum again, likely in spring, of the 2025-2026 school year.

“The numbers could be better, they could be worse,” School District of Monroe’s Business Manager Ron Olson said. “There’s no easy cuts.”

The district will present the final list of cuts the board on February 10.

The cuts and financial desperation of school district comes amid a $4.6 budget surplus in the State of Wisconsin.

“The news that Wisconsin has a budget surplus of more than $4.5 billion comes at a time when too many of our school districts across the state are forced to go to referendum just to keep the lights on and our teachers in the classroom,” said State Education Supt. Jill Underly, last October when news of the surplus emerged. “Our legislature has woefully underfunded public education to the detriment of our kids and communities.”