Posted on 02/22/2006 4:01:15 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Mequon - Voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum Tuesday that would have raised taxes in the Mequon-Thiensville School District by $2.5 million for each of the next three years.
Fifty-seven percent of those who cast votes opposed the measure, which sparked one of the highest turnouts - 37% - among Tuesday's primaries in the metro area,3 according to unofficial results.
Officials had said the referendum was necessary to offset a $6.5 million budget shortfall the district faces in the next three years. It would also have funded $1 million in technology upgrades and maintenance repairs.
"It's a simple yes or no question," said Robert Slotterback, the district's superintendent. "Should we cut things out of the district? The public is saying we should."
The referendum's defeat comes four years after voters rejected another request by the district to exceed its state-capped revenue limits, that time by $9.5 million over five years.
Bruce Duncan, treasurer for a group that opposed Tuesday's referendum, said the defeat signals that the district is out of touch with its residents.
"I hope they go back and re-evaluate what they're doing," he said. "They need to sit down and start having some real discussions about where they have their priorities. That's all there is to it."
Duncan is treasurer of the Mequon/Thiensville Property Owners - Keep Our Schools - Save Our Homes, a group that distributed literature and yard signs urging residents to vote down the measure, he said.
Officials have said the district faces a $1 million shortfall next year, a $2.2 million shortfall the following year, and a $3.3 million shortfall the year after. The shortfalls occur as the district's expenses, particularly the increases in teacher compensation resulting from the state's qualified economic offer law, increase faster than its revenue, officials have said.
Mithra Ballesteros, co-chair of the Save Our Schools advocacy group, said she was disappointed with the outcome of the election but said she was "thrilled that the turnout was so high."
"I think it shows that everyone got the message," Ballesteros said. "There's no way that anybody didn't know what was going on in the community. . . . We're going to keep working."
Board President Peter Stone said he also was disappointed but not surprised at the measure's defeat. The board's job is now to minimize the educational impact of cuts it will make in coming years, he said.
Slotterback said the district will cut teaching positions and teaching assistants in order to negate those shortfalls. He has told the board that cuts would include 15 teaching positions and 11 custodians.
"The referendum is saying that we want higher class sizes and fewer options for our students," Slotterback said. "That's what we're going to do."
Although this issue was not directly related to Free Republic, FR members were involved in orchestrating this defeat. Hooray for us!
Just a ping to let you know what we've been doing.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
For those who have not heard about this issue, the school district tried to sneak a $7.5 million increase by the taxpayers by putting it on a Feb. 21 ballot all by its lonesome. Of course they expected most of the taxpayers to be out of town for the winter.
They ran a very well financed stealth campaign targeting only the parents of children in school and not advertised to the rest of the town. They called it a referendum for "non-recurring expenses", but all of the money was to go for increased staff salaries and benefits and deferred repairs and maintenance. This is money to be spent on top of their regular increases. This is for a district with rapidly declining enrollment that already spends one of the highest per student rates in the state.
This is money on top of the last referendum for expanding and rebuilding the high school where they spent more than $16 million more than the amount that the voters allotted. Now the school is so spread out and ill designed that they can heat it, patrol it, and the kids can't get from one class to another in the time allotted. And they didn't even fix the roof with the $40 million that we gave them!
I just thought that some of you would be interested in this grass roots victory.
I grew up in Whitefish Bay, my mother still lives in Shorewood, my sister in River Hills. Good news from the Milwaukee area.
And what a belligerant a$$ our superintendent is! He still doesn't "get it"! The voters don't want larger classes and fewer choices (necessarily). He should start cutting from the top -- administration and overhead first.
The voters are not going to stand being lied to and they are not going to allow them to take their frustrations out on our children, either.
Overhead is a biggie, you're right.
We homeschool and do specials at the local school. One day my daughter who is Kindergarten age could not do Gym because the class was doing a remote teleconference with another Kindergarten. How many $$$$ does THAT equipment cost?
So we sat in the hallway for a while, watching the 19" television by the front doors show pictures of the hundreds of field trips every class went on while the 19" in the office behind us continually ran the Weather Channel.
Cut the tvs and teleconferences and maybe I'll have some sympathy that you need more money.
BTW, My five year old is doing second grade work and my eight year old is about to start fifth grade. I do it all for about 200.00 a year. Including printer paper and ink!
There is a special place in heaven for you homeschooler moms!
We had brutal weather here last weekend and a homeschooling mom of 4 went out in sub zero weather to walk the streets of her village to distribute our flyers against this referendum. Her village has no rural route mail boxes like my city.
The rest of us distributed flyers via auto, and one lady suffered $1000 worth of damage to her car when she slid into a granite-hard snowbank. But, it was still a savings over what the school district wanted to do to her taxes!
However, the 2 ladies who walked the streets of the village with our flyers in sub zero temps really earned the bouquets of flowers my husband sent them on election day! Most of us in this loose coalition did not even know each other before last week!
And I see that you have "escaped" to Florida, you lucky dog! LOL. We started our flyer distribution in -15 degree weather!
Outstanding work. Of course, the lieberals just couldn't stop lying; after they did everything they could to suppress turnout among the larger community, from scheduling it as the only election of the day to being quiet to everyone except people they thought would support jacking up the taxes, they had the audacity to claim they were "thrilled" that turnout was high.
IOW, they've been operating over their budget and are now expecting the taxpayers to bail them out. These bureaucrats will bleed the people dry if given half a chance. Congratulations on your hard work under very chilly circumstances. Not only the taxpayers of the Mequon-Thiensville are in your debt, but all of us burdened Cheeseheads need to follow your example.
This is for a district with rapidly declining enrollment
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Why is enrollment rapidly declining?
The enrollment is rapidly declining because the housing here is so expensive. People with small children cannot afford to live here (and neither can most of the rest of us). 73% of the housholds have no children. And 25% of the housholds with children send them to parochial, private, or home schools. The school board designed the referendum to be put on the ballot at a time when most of the older folks are in Florida, Arizona, Mexico, or some other warm place.
Thanks for your support. I can count on you two to see through the razzle-dazzle that these school districts put out!
Awright AFTR!!
Isn't Slotterback the former Superintendent of the Wauwatosa schools? I recall him leaving there under less that ideal circumstances . . .
You go girl (and Mr. AFTR)!
Yes indeedy. Do you know anything else about Slotterback? FReeMail me. I've heard lots of hints, but nobody's talking.
We are in the same boat here in the Falls. Our district tried two unsuccessful referenda to lump building a new elementary school with regular maintenance work and both failed. No doubt the maintenance needs to be done, but not lumped with a new elementary school.
I volunteer heavily for a community non-profit that serves children and our kindergarten and 1st grade numbers are declining for the same reason yours are - there's just not enough "affordable" homes to buy in the community anymore.
My non-profit saw the trend 4 years ago. You can bet the school district had access to the same data and chose to make it say what THEY wanted, not what it really meant.
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