MONROE — The School District of Monroe has finalized plans to ask voters for a $2.75 million, four-year operating referendum that will appear on the April ballot.
The move during its January 5 regular meeting follows identification of about $2 million in drastic program cuts that eliminate more than 20 full-time positions, including many teachers. Those cuts are not a threat, officials said, but a concrete plan if the referendum fails again.
At issue — the district continues to emphasize — is the state’s failure to increase revenue support to districts, even as some lawmakers say the school’s financial problems are due to several factors like decreased enrollment rather than state revenue.
Still, local schools say beyond declining enrollment, they have had to eat rising costs for everything, at the same time the state is cutting and taxpayers here and across the state are weary of any uptick in property taxes — having approved a $88 million referendum for a new Monroe High School, and major upgrades to Abraham Lincoln Elementary.
Crucially, Supt. Joe Monroe cited the gaps in state aid as a key factor behind an education funding crisis statewide.
“Ultimately, the state of Wisconsin has put us in a position where communities have to rely on operating referendums to cover shortfalls that we have,” said Joe Monroe.
The operational referendum’s failure last year — following eight consecutive years of a non-recurring, $1.5 million operating referendum — led the board to settle on deep reductions, including programs and student-facing staff at various levels. Those totaled more than about $1 million.
The district’s woes are shared by scores of other districts in the state: In Wisconsin, 82% of school districts have pursued referendums to sustain staffing and programs. And in 2024 alone, 131 districts brought a combined 148 operational referendum questions to voters.
The $2 million in potential cuts looming would include about 23 full-time equivalent staff. Meanwhile, the district also is paying significant interest each year, due to the short-term borrowing that it needs to stay afloat (The district is considering all available options to cover the cash float, including selling the Bauer Education Center).
The last round of major cuts in Monroe had lasting impacts — included permanently eliminating the German language program, slashing a special education teacher and two special education aides. Moreover, the reductions also meant that about 300 of the 1,000 students attending summer school last year lost bus rides to and from school.
Even with a successful referendum in April, the district will be forced to find ongoing cost savings to address inflation. As part of that effort, it has identified $285,000 to $380,000 in staffing savings by eliminating 3 to 4 teaching positions based on class size analysis and program changes.
Prior to the Monday discussion, the board was praised by a community member for its efforts to be more transparent and communicative in dealing with the fiancé issue — an homage seemingly to the groundswell of opposition that developed in the wake of the MHS referendum push and vote, during which some accused district officials of misleading the public on the real cost to taxpayers.
This time around, though, the district spent months engaged in public listening sessions, public surveys, and data analysis prior to presenting its case for renewing the operational referendum. The district has posted all key financial presentations and documents related to the referendum to its web site at https://www.monroeschools.com/. That site also includes a section devoted to the massive MHS project, which remains on target for rough completion in April, officials said.
