The spring election of 2024 was another winner for school spending issues, showing voters are willing to spend on education in their local districts.
Voters approved more than $956.5 million of …
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The spring election of 2024 was another winner for school spending issues, showing voters are willing to spend on education in their local districts.
Voters approved more than $956.5 million of the $1.4 billion on the ballot for school districts across the state in the April 2 spring election, according to a WisPolitics review.
That’s more than voters approved in the past three April elections, which ranged from about $530 million to $864.2 million, according to data provided by Wisconsin Policy Forum. But it’s still less than the $1.7 billion approved in 2020, which included a $1 billion referendum in the Racine Unified School District.
The $1.4 billion in school spending requests was the third-highest districts have sought in a single election since 2000, behind the more than $2 billion in November 2022 and $637.6 million on the ballot in 2023.
The biggest ask on the ballot was the $252 million referendum for the Milwaukee Public School district. That narrowly passed despite a more than $400,000 opposition campaign by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
WisPolitics compiled a list of referendums that passed by using a combination of online county election results, a list of results provided by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and local media reports.
Some of the other big approvals included:
But voters rejected $102.3 million for the Mukwonago School District as 54% of voters opposed providing the funds to build a new middle school, demolish Park View Middle School and renovate elementary schools to create spaces for four-year-old kindergarten. That was the third-highest ask.
Other top rejections included:
For more go to www.wispolitics.com.
The Capitol Report is written by editorial staff at WisPolitics.com, a nonpartisan, Madison-based news service that specializes in coverage of government and politics and is distributed for publication by members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
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