Referendum Updates

April 2nd, 2024.

 

The question asked voters for $2,000,000 per year for five years, ending in the 2028-29 school year.

A majority of the funds over the five years would go towards staff retention/recurring costs. This will ensure that the district’s workforce compensation remains competitive with other neighboring districts, and will therefore allow for better teacher/staff continuity and retention. 

The remaining funds will be separated as follows:

• Security- about  $300,000 a year 

  • About 10-15 additional security cameras a year

  • Traffic mitigation along 15th Avenue (conversations and specifics ongoing with the city)

  • Electronic key-fob access for internal doors across the District 

• Career Exploration- about  $350,000 a year

  • Funds to go towards reviewing curriculum and allowing earlier career exposure at the elementary level

  • Curricular materials for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) K-8 

  • Additional training for counselors and teachers in access to careers in Computer Science 

  • Two additional teachers at the elementary level 

• Technology- About $300,000 a year

  • Interactive LCD panels for classrooms to replace outdated Smartboards

  • Update network infrastructure

  • Additional network switches to support the additional safety devices

  • Comprehensive district-wide technology replacement plan

The estimated property tax change due to the referendum will be 4 cents per every $1,000 of assessed property value. The owner of a home assessed at $200,000 would see a property tax increase of no more than $8 per year.

Referendums are a government body's way of increasing its revenue from local taxpayers above and beyond limits set by the state legislature. In the event that a district’s Revenue Limit is not enough to meet anticipated expenses, a school board can vote to go to referendum. A referendum allows a district to levy above the Revenue Limit for a predetermined amount and timeframe.
There are two types of referenda, operational and capital.

Operational referendums provide the District with money to pay salaries and implement or pay for programs that do not require building anything. An example of a service provided by a past operational referendum is South Milwaukee's 4-year-old kindergarten program. After voters approved the 2018 referendum the School District was able to provide all-day 4K classes at each of the elementary schools.

Capital referendums provide one-time funds for building projects. For example, in 2004 voters approved a referendum that allowed the District to borrow money to build the South Milwaukee High School and the Performing Arts Center. The bonds that financed that project were paid off early in 2022.

 

The vast majority of a school district’s revenue comes from a combination of state aid and property tax. Both of these items are capped in a state-mandated Revenue Limit. This Revenue Limit is ultimately determined by how many pupils reside in a district. Simply put the more pupils, the higher the Revenue Limit.

 

SDSM’s revenues are not keeping pace with inflation. Staffing costs, utilities, and just about all operational expenses have increased. 

Our district’s funding is heavily determined by how many students are in the district - and that number is anticipated to decrease by 5% over the course of the next five years because there are fewer children being born across the state and a number of other factors.  Schools cannot always reduce expenses when we have fewer students as those students might be spread across multiple schools and grade levels. In 2023-24, SDSM had 2,739 students enrolled.  In 2022-23, SDSM had 2,763 students enrolled.  That is a difference of 24 students, which if they were all at one elementary school in one grade level would allow reductions to take place at one grade level. Given that the decrease is spread across multiple grade levels, reducing expenses becomes more problematic. 

School districts across Wisconsin are also losing their Federal ESSER funds in September of 2024, and the state has not provided funding to replace those funds. Our district is anticipated to face a deficit of $866,000 in the 24-25 school year, and the district is projected to see even greater deficits within the next five years.  

 

The main problem the school district is facing is in regard to the recurring funding that is going away as a result of declining enrollment/membership. It’s the recurring expenses and revenue, not the one-time capital projects, which are fueling this problem.

$1 million of the project came from a direct donation from the Bucyrus Foundation the terms of which were specifically to be used for renovating the football field. An additional $1 million has been committed from fundraising from Launching a Legacy.

No new debt was incurred by the District for the remainder of the cost of the project. The costs associated with these renovations came out of the general fund (Fund 10) in 2022-23, and were placed in the Capital Improvement Fund (Fund 46) to be completed in the 2023-24 school year. In short, the projections and financial problems that are being shown are in the general fund for 23-24 and onward and do not include the Athletic Fields renovations at all.

Elementary and Secondary School Relief (ESSER) Funds are one time, non recurring funds which are intended to be used to solve one time costs associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. These funds will go away in their entirety at the end of the 23-24 school year.

SDSM has used these funds to ensure clean air quality in all of our buildings by purchasing in class air purifiers and adding hospital-grade HVAC units at E.W Luther and Lakeview schools. They have also been used to fund staff, curriculum, and resources to ensure learning loss recovery.

A homeowner of a $200,000 house is anticipated to see an $8 increase on the school district portion of their property tax bill in 2024 as compared to 2023.

Because energy efficiency debt is falling off at the end of the 23-24 school year, the district has the rare opportunity to switch from levying for debt to levying for general operations. That switch in levying authority – moving from debt to operating funds limits the increase in the mill rate relative to the 2023-24 school year.

The below chart shows the components of the tax levy.

A recurring referendum ultimately gives a school district more money per pupil. Given the fact that the district anticipated to continue losing pupils (5% in the next 5 years), the amount of money the district would receive from a recurring referendum would decrease with time.

Ultimately, this situation would be similar to having an hourly job where you receive a higher pay per hour, but fewer hours to work. This situation could net out to the same amount that you had initially over time.

The School Board. The board voted unanimously to approve resolutions to put a referendum question on the April 2nd ballot at the January 10th, 2024 board meeting.

 

Debt for paying for the expenses relating to constructing the high school has been paid in full. The authority for levying debt expired at that point, resulting in a lower mil rate for school taxes in the 2022-23 school year.

Since the High School debt is paid off, doesn’t the school district have access to additional funds?

No - the terms of the past referendum that allowed SDSM to build the high school was for capital debt purposes only. Once that debt was paid off, the School District lost the levying authority for those additional funds.

Some school districts made it out further ahead in the most recent Biennium Budget than others. The two main variables that all districts received were the $325 per pupil increase to the Revenue Limit, and an increase of Special Ed reimbursement from 30% to 33.3%. These two items do not allow school districts to keep pace with inflation. In order to make up for the previous biennium which did not see any per pupil increase to the revenue limit, and to keep pace with how high inflation has been in the recent past, SDSM would have to have received a $1,510 increase to the revenue limit over the course of the biennium (or $755 per year).

 

The biggest change in the biennium was the low-revenue ceiling. School districts that had a revenue limit of less than $11,000 per pupil were brought up to $11,000. As a result, districts such as Oak Creek-Franklin, which were at $10,000 before the biennium, received a $1,000 per pupil adjustment in the revenue limit while school districts like Cudahy, Greendale, South Milwaukee, and a host of other districts did not receive anything from this provision. 

 

In short, although the Biennium was historic, it was not sufficient to combat the even more historic inflation hitting school districts.

The School District of South Milwaukee provides a robust and vibrant educational environment for our students. There are clear and measurable plans for improving our schools with referendum funding. That said, our student's test scores are improving.

State Report Cards for our schools indicate that all but one of our schools met or exceeded expectations in 2022-23 as reported in November 2023. 

Deep Dive: Listen to the State Report Card episode of the SMWay Podcast

We have many areas where we have grown and a lot to celebrate. We also have some areas that need improvement and are working hard to make the needed adjustments so we can better serve our students and community.    

District Report Card

Celebrations:

• Overall score increased 3.8 points

• Growth Score increased by 5.7 points

• An increase from three to five of our schools that meet or exceed expectations 

• Growth of target groups exceeds the state average in both ELA and Math

Opportunities for growth:

• Increase in chronic absenteeism by 3.1%

• Gap in scores between our schools so we need to increase consistency of practice across our schools

South Milwaukee High School

Celebrations:

• Exceeds the State average in participation in AP courses, Dual enrollment and Industry-recognized credentials

• Growth of the target group exceeds the state average

Opportunities for growth:

• Decrease in overall score by 1.9

• Increase in chronic truancy by 5.8%

South Milwaukee Middle School

Celebrations:

• Overall score increased by 9.3 points

• Growth score overall increased by 14.2 points

• Math increased by 13.3 points

• ELA increased by 15.2 points

• Growth Score in math exceeded the state average

Opportunities for growth:

• Chronic Absenteeism increased by 4.1% last year

Blakewood Elementary School

Celebrations:

• School-wide attendance is above the state average

• An increase in the number of student proficient in ELA and Math

Opportunities for growth:

• Overall score decreased by 3.0 points

• Chronic Absenteeism increased by 4.1% last year

Lakeview Elementary School

Celebrations:

• Increased overall score by 7.9 points to move to Meets Expectations

• Increased both Math and ELA achievement scores

• Growth in ELA has increased by 19 points

Opportunities for Growth

• Chronic absenteeism has increased by 2.8%

E. W. Luther Elementary School

Celebrations:

• Scores in the Exceeding Expectations category

• Exceeded State average in Achievement Math and ELA

• Exceeded State average in Growth in Math and ELA 

• Growth Score was at the 82 percentile for the state

Opportunities for Growth:

• Chronic absenteeism increased by 1.4%

Rawson Elementary School

Celebrations:

• Overall score increased by 9.3 points.

• Growth score overall increased by 14.2 points

• Math increased 13.3 

• ELA increased 15.2

• Growth Score in math exceeded the state average

Opportunities for Growth:

• Chronic absenteeism has improved but is still at a concerning rate

 

Yes, but that’s a one-time source of revenue. Once that land is sold and the money spent, it’s gone, and that won’t address the long-term deficit South Milwaukee faces.

School funding at the State level has not kept pace with inflation for more than a decade. To put that in perspective, because per-student funding has not kept up with inflation, schools across the state have seen their per-student amount decline each year since the class of 2023 was in kindergarten. Had inflation adjustments been made, in the 2023-24 school year per-student funding would be $3,000 more per student per year.