Understanding the Wausau School District referendum

Plus some additional points from the meeting unrelated to the referendum

Superintendent of Schools Cale Bushman speaks to residents about its upcoming referendum at the Wausau East High School Library Tuesday.

The Wausau School District held two information sessions on the referendum this week. The first was held at the Wausau West High School auditorium. The second, because of a scheduling conflict, was held at the Wausau East High School library (the auditorium was in use) last Tuesday.

That might not seem like a terribly significant detail, but the first meeting lasted about 26 minutes, according to the video of the meeting posted on YouTube.

The second clocked in at well over an hour, with the vast majority of the meeting consisting of community members asking questions.

In fact, that might suggest a different strategy going forward if the idea is to get more community discussion.

Understanding the referendum

This April voters will be asked by the Wausau School District whether or not to fund $8 million per year for five years to cover operational budget shortfalls and deferred maintenance on some of the district’s buildings.

The selling point from the district: it won’t cost taxpayers directly. That’s because the school district has been aggressively paying down its borrowing in order to save money. The plan is to simply stop paying that borrowing back aggressively and use it on operations and maintenance instead. (For a personal finance parallel: It’s like taking the extra money you were paying toward your mortgage every month and putting it toward your budget instead.

Assistant Superintendent of Operations Josh Viegut, in response to my question, admitted that would cost the district about $1 million (the money that the district would have saved had it kept paying off the debt at an aggressive rate). So it’s not totally cost-free.

Why does the district need to ask for the money, if it seems like they’re just moving money around?

The amount the district can tax residents in the district is capped by state levy limits. And state aid comes on a fixed formula. To go beyond that, state law requires districts to ask voters via a referendum.

Why does the district need the money? Why is there a deficit?

There are a few factors at play.

One is state aid. State aid has lagged inflation, according to data provided by the district. That state aid per student would be $3,300 higher had it kept up with the consumer price index, the district reports.

Another is enrollment decline. State aid formulas are based on the number of students, called Third Friday counts. As The Wausonian has written before, the number of students enrolling at Wausau schools, and schools state and nationwide, have been declining over the years. Although the exact formula is very complex, as the now-retired finance director Bob Tess used to say, about $10,000 in aid for each student is a good ballpark estimate. But the bottom line is that as student enrollments decrease, so does state aid.

The third factor? Too much building for too few students. In light of those enrollment declines, school facilities are overbuilt. Where once districts were worried about overcrowding, the opposite has been the case in recent years. That’s unlikely to change as birth rates continue to decline.

That’s a challenge because school buildings aren’t easy to get rid of. People have strong attachments to their local schools. The district formed a task force with parents, students, teachers and other staff last year to look at the district’s elementary footprint and ultimately recommended the closure of four schools. (More technically, three closures and Lincoln Elementary will become a 4K site.) That came after the district scrapped a major overhaul of its buildings and structure.

Because of those three factors, the district faces an annual shortfall of $3.7 million.

What happens after five years?

That’s a good question, one that another attendee made. (I was the only journalist in the room, but I don’t know if someone else attended the first session.) The hope, district leaders say, is that some of these reductions in the number of schools (which means fewer teachers, fewer staff, fewer maintenance issues and operational upkeep) will save enough money that the shortfall will be corrected. The task force will next look at the district’s secondary schools (middle school and high school).

What if the referendum doesn’t pass?

That looks a bit dire. The district would not perform any of the deferred maintenance (which as anyone who owns a home or a car knows can lead to bigger problems down the road). There could be staff salary freezes. And the district might have to start looking at course offerings - perhaps even eliminating electives or other classes.

Some interesting observations from the meeting outside of the scope of the referendum

One thing that was pretty far off-topic in the meeting, which ran for nearly an hour and a half from an engaged audience, was a teacher speaking about behavior issues.