Referendum listening session is Monday night
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Community School District Board of Education spend Monday night in special session, working on a survey to present to the public about the district’s facility needs and the direction of the proposed November referendum to fund the needed repairs and improvements.
Superintendent Chris Hibner told the board the district was on track with the process to bring the question to referendum this fall, with the community survey expected to go out at the end of May.
The board members reviewed a very preliminary survey that Hibner and the district’s communication’s consultant Joe Donovan, of Donovan Group, had spent the past week compiling. Both Hibner and Donovan stressed to the board that the survey was to help them and any changes they wanted to it would be implemented.
“This survey is designed to help the board get the necessary feedback to find the right solution for the district,” Hibner told the board.
The preliminary survey was 22 pages long in printed format, but Donovan told the board that the majority of people would be taking the survey online.
“The survey is not long to take,” Hibner assured the board. “But it’s a large piece of information.”
Donovan said the format of the survey, with questions split into different segments, that followed informational sections, was designed purposefully to keep the survey taker engaged. He told the board when people are presented with a large amount of information about something like a referendum at the beginning of the survey, they tend to not finish the survey at all, which is not the desired result.
The board members said they would like to see some of the “informational” sections shortened and simplified and Donovan agreed that some of the expanded information could be moved out of the actual survey to make it more user friendly.
“We are asking them to read a lot of stuff,” Donovan said.
Board member Martha Bresler said her biggest concern was that community members would be taking the survey without knowing anything about what the district’s needs are.
“That’s is my fear as well,” Hibner said. “People might go into the survey with one thing on their mind.”
Some board members worried paring down the informational sections on the survey might be counterproductive.
“If we take out too much I don’t think were’ going to get the informed feedback we need,” Vice-president Dawn Buccholtz said.
Bresler said finding out what the community is willing to support if vital at this stage. “If everybody says elementary is the way to go, then at least we know.
With the district able to borrow $20 million for the facility needs with a zero-dollar impact on property taxes because of the debt that falls off in 2018, the board members are looking to the community to tell them if that’s the limit of what it can spend for improvements or if, for a little more, the community is willing to do more.
Board member Steve Lambrechts pointed out that wherever the money was spent, the board needed to be conscious of the fact that it will probably be 15-20 years before the district can go to referendum again for large-scale improvements.
In the end, the community will decide what it’s willing to support, Hibner reminded the board.
Listening session
The East Troy School District Board of Education is holding a special referendum listen session on Monday, April 12, at 6 p.m. in the High School library.
All members of the Board of Education, district administrator, director of instruction, and district business manager may be in attendance.
The School Board will not take any action at this meeting; it is solely for the board and administration to hear public input regarding the proposed facility needs referendum being considered for the November general election.
