Dear Editor:

As many community members are aware, our school is asking for an operational referendum to be passed in this fall’s election on November 5. There has been a ton of information that’s been shared in our community recently regarding public education funding and I would like to share some facts about this referendum that I found interesting.

• Operational funds are used to keep the school running: i.e. staff, office, curriculum, coaches, supplies.
• Revenue limits were placed on schools in 1993 by Tommy Thompson. They were only supposed to stay on for one year and 31 years later we still operate under revenue caps. Schools have not received an inflation increase for about the past 15 years. Why can’t school board’s raise the levy if they find it necessary to operate effectively. Isn’t that why they were elected?
• Public schools were given federal money during COVID which was mainly used to backfill budgets because the state does not fund schools adequately. This money was supposed to be used to help with the educational loss students experienced by not being in school and provide mental health help to our students. The money ran out at the end of the 2023 school year which leaves a budget shortfall.
• Students are “valued” by the state based on the area’s property taxes. Our students are “valued” at $11,410 while some other schools’ students are as high as $28,000. The district’s number of students comes only from the school’s headcount, not the number of students living in the district.
• This spring, nearly 100 school districts in the state of Wisconsin (out of 421) had to go to referendum. A little over half of those passed. Referendums are typically for 2-3 years at a time, so consider how many may be doing referendums next year. Each referendum costs the school about $12,000 when it’s all completed. A failed referendum means trying again in the spring while a passed one in November means we will have to have another one in three years.
• O-W has already made cuts this year: staff and coaches, after school programs, reduced select teacher hours, increased fees, and they did not purchase any new computers this school year for staff or students (our computers are about five years old).

The majority of our budget goes to staff (83%) and the school is already operating on a bare bones staff. If we continue to make cuts to staff, it would be our non-core educators. That would mean the school could potentially lose FBLA (no business teacher), FFA (no agriculture or shop teacher), music (no band or choir teacher) or athletics (coaches). Has anyone noticed we have not replaced our Spanish teacher and have only one art teacher for the whole school K-12? Quality teachers may start looking elsewhere due to lack of support. All of this would significantly decrease the enjoyment and opportunities we offer to our students, which may lead to students open-enrolling elsewhere.

Our school is on the verge of closing after the 2024-2025 year if our referendum doesn’t pass. This would mean bussing our kids to other schools through realigned school district borders. If that happened, we would still be responsible to pay the tax burden and spend even more money to bus our kids elsewhere while the building sits empty.

Gaps in funding are going back to the communities of the school districts. After over 30 years of unfair and gap-widening spending caps, the issue isn’t our school or school board, the root cause is the legislation. The state of Wisconsin has a $7 billion general budget surplus (Tony Evers 2023-2025 Budget in Brief published February 2023), which they have not used to assist with the gap in public school funding. The issue is crippling our school.

This will be an ongoing issue for many small school districts, so we really need to contact our representatives to adequately fund our public schools!

I plead that everyone do the following:

• Vote on November 5!
• Be as informed as possible. Ask questions!
• Attend a school board meeting, get involved!
• Contact the state of Wisconsin to adequately fund public education! Karen Hurd, WI Representative, Assembly District 68, Rep.Hurd@legis.wisconsin.gov., 608-237-9168.

If you would like more information regarding Owen-Withee’s operational referendum, please consider:

• Visiting the school’s website
• Checking out the O-W Community Action Committee Facebook page (or emailing questions to owcac2024@gmail.com)
• Reaching out to Randy Bergman, Owen-Withee School District Superintendent at 715-229-2151
• Checking out this article on WEAU, “Why School Districts go to Referendum,” published October 1, 2024

Deanne Wells

Community Member

Local business owner

OWHS Mom