Wausau School Board Takes No Action on Potential Operating Referendum

Tuesday, August 13th, 2024 -- 9:02 AM

(Mike Leischner, WSAU) The Wausau School Board took no action Monday on a potential school operating referendum though made it clear that the issue could come back next Spring.

According to Mike Leischner with WSAU, board members heard a brief presentation from Assistant Superintendent for Operations Josh Viegut, who went through some of the mechanics of school funding and the district’s options for proposing a referendum.

Following the presentation members of the board agreed that while the district’s financial situation isn’t good, they need more information on the medium and long-term needs before going to voters to ask for more money. That includes what the makeup of the district will look like in the future, as a study of the elementary school footprint remains in progress.

“We are in need right now. We’re in deep need,” said Board President Jim Bouche. “But at the same time we want more information and we have been told by the administration we will have a lot more information if we wait until April.”

“I think in the [name of] being fiscally responsible and knowing that we want to get all of those variables [in place],” added new Superintendent Cale Bushman. “It’s not that we don’t need [the money] right now, but we want to be very conscious of the needs that we have.”

Both Bushman and Bouche agreed that the situation could change with the results of the focus group study Viegut and some board members also noted that state funding hasn’t kept up with inflation, leading many districts to request more from their taxpayers to make up the difference.

Earlier this year it was revealed that the district was looking at a multi-million dollar budget shortfall. They’ve already laid off some workers and encouraged others to take early retirement to help the situation, but those efforts didn’t entirely close the gap.

Earlier this summer the district enlisted a consultant to survey voters on their support for a potential referendum question. Those results showed some support for a question that would increase the revenue limit by $3 million annually.

In this scenario, the district would maintain current staffing levels with no increase in the mill rate. Two other hypothetical questions that increase revenue limits by $6 and $9 million while also hiking taxes between $54 and $108 per $100,000 of property value showed well under 50% support.

No further discussion on the issue was immediately scheduled.

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