By Kellen Olshefski
Correspondent
The Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education held a budget workshop Jan. 6 with a goal of getting an early start on the 2025-26 school year budget, partly to discuss the failed November referendum and whether or not the district would like to pursue another referendum this spring.
Speaking at the meeting, which is available for viewing on the EASD YouTube page, District Administrator Jason Tadlock said the district typically has at least one budget workshop each year and had a couple last year, considering the budget forecast and to have discussion on the November referendum.
Tadlock said they felt it was important to get an early start this year, as from a timeline perspective, the school board is required to complete and finalize a referendum question by Jan. 20 under Wisconsin statutes if it wishes to go back to referendum on the April 1 ballot for the spring election. The school district only had one regular board meeting, this past Monday, Jan. 13, before that deadline.
In an interview Jan. 13, Tadlock explained that by statute the board has to make the decision at minimum 90 days prior to the election.
He also noted that if the board didn’t go to referendum this spring, as there’s no fall election this year, it would have to wait until spring of 2026 to go to referendum again.
“So, there’s no time to address it for next year’s budget cycle,” he said.
If there were a fall election in 2025, he said the board could wait, spend more time on listening sessions and refining a referendum question and still have it affect the 2025-26 budget; however, that’s not the case.
“So, the board’s forced into doing it this spring or not doing it at all, which would require to make those cuts of $4 million plus by next year,” he said.
Tadlock said they had received a lot of feedback on the failed November 2024 referendum from constituents, many requesting the district reconsider how much it was asking for and reduce the tax impact, for example.
One of the largest pieces of feedback, Tadlock said, was that many who didn’t support the referendum said they would have if it weren’t a recurring referendum.
He said it wasn’t that people didn’t trust the school district with the recurring funds but that they were unsure of what the future would hold and preferred the school district come back and ask for more in the future if additional funding was needed.
For the full story, please see the print edition of the Elkhorn Independent.
