Referendum failure leads to tough choices
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
When the results of the April 7 election came in and the East Troy Community Schools operational referendum was voted down, the School Board and district were faced with difficult questions and few answers.
The School Board met in a special session April 15 to discuss the situation, where district administration and School Board members expressed disappointment in the community’s failure to support the schools.
District Administrator Chris Hibner said he understood that in the uncertain climate of the coronavirus pandemic, people were scared and possibly leery of agreeing to higher taxes, which would have been about $98 a year on $100,000 of property value.
“I appreciate the number of people who came out to vote,” Hibner said. “I think it was a pretty strongly representative vote.”
School Board member Bob Dignan said he hoped the passion he saw in the people who thought the referendum was and “unnecessary expenditure” would take that passion to their local lawmakers to find a solution to school funding. He added that East Troy is in the bottom 15% of state funding because of the formula used.
“This used to be a community where the school system mattered,” Dignan said.
School Board member Tony Barrett wondered if it was still a matter of people just not understanding how bad things were in the district.
“I know we didn’t go for it in November because we knew the key was getting out the information,” Barrett said, adding that the board members and district spent months on educating the community of the need.
“The people who voted no, did you still not know?” Barrett asked. “Did you still not understand the situation? If you understood, you would have had a hard time voting no.”
School Board member Steve Lambrechts, who was re-elected in the April 7, used the term “disheartening” to describe the referendum’s failure.
The five-year, non-recurring $1.6 million operation referendum would have allowed the School District to move forward with several much-needed maintenance projects and help with operation expenses, including teacher salaries. While the district acknowledged the referendum would not solve it’s funding issues, it would go a long way to maintaining a quality education environment for the children.
Making cuts
As a result of the failed referendum, School District administration April 20 recommended deep cuts into staffing and other areas to balance the budget for the 2020-21 school year.
School District Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas said the recommendations they were making to the board didn’t come easy.
“After many, many discussions – long arduous discussions this is what we have,” business manager, Kathy Zwirgzdas.
The recommendations included the elimination of four, full-time teaching positions – high school science, high school French, one fifth-grade teacher and the coordinator of teaching and learning, who also runs the gifted and talented program and summer school. In addition the cut of a .75 part-time high school study hall aid position and a .2 reduction in hours for Zwirgzdas.
Earlier in the April 20 meeting, Hibner expressed sorrow and a bit of frustration at the district’s need to remain competitive with surrounding school districts when East Troy doesn’t have the community support other districts like Mukwonago, Elkhorn and Waterford all have passed recent referendums, sometimes more than one, in recent years.
Hibner said he is often asked how the district is going to increase programming and offerings to compete, which are valid questions, but without the funds to do so, not an easy answer.
“It’s difficult to compare us to others when we’re not on the same playing field,” Hibner said.
He added that test scores, which are on the lower side of the spectrum compared to some of the surrounding school districts, are not the only indicator of how well a district is doing and it’s hard to address that because it’s a visible metric.
“While we continue to try to be not just on the same playing field, but better, using tests as measurements to other districts is not fair,” Hibner said, adding that much of the good that’s going on in the schools is often overlooked in favor of a single test score. Especially since all the educators in the district have completely changed how they teach in the last six weeks.
“I don’t think out employees hear it enough – thank you,” Hibner said.
Hibner seems obsessed with “competing” with other districts. They are over-leveraged, too. How did we create Einstein, without all the school wants vs. needs. Also, maybe because there was less frilly distractions. Many in the public would love to line-item school budget, like they have to in their own homes. I’m sure there are many, many targets for non-essential services.