BASD Operational Referendum

The school district will have an operational referendum on the ballot April 1, 2025.

This referendum is BASD's third time asking the community for dollars relating to operational needs across the district. The first two times the community voted them down. Therefore, BASD has never utilized an operational referendum to assist with financial needs for the school district. The most recent referendum in BASD was for a CAPITAL referendum (which can be used to "build things" - in our case Karcher). An OPERATIONAL referendum is used to cover ongoing costs of the district. Operational referendums have become the "new normal" in the state of Wisconsin in regards to how public schools are to pay for district expenses. This is not a Burlington problem, but a state wide new way/expectation on how to fund public education. That is why over 85% of all districts have asked and are using operational referendum dollars.

Additionally, it is common to talk about the per pupil dollar amount across school districts. What gets tricky about per pupil dollar amounts is that there are about many different ways you can look for or find per pupil dollar amounts for school districts. We believe the best way to analyze per pupil dollar amounts is by using the maximum revenue per member with all exemptions located on the Department of Public Instruction Website. When looking at this number the state average per pupil dollar amount across Wisconsin is $13,363. BASD's per pupil dollar amount is $12,161. We are the second lowest in per pupil spending in our area. Elkhorn sits slightly below us, but they too are asking their community for an operational referendum come April 1.

You will also notice there are communities in "gray" (graph below). Within each of these communities at least one district within their community is asking for a referendum this spring. Burlington, Elkhorn, Delavan-Darien, East Troy, and Williams Bay are the only districts in our area that are K-12 school districts. Meaning, there is one Superintendent for all schools in their community. All other communities have multiple school districts (multiple Superintendents and School Boards) within their communities. For example, Waterford actually has 5 school districts that feed into Waterford Union High School. Where in Burlington, we are ONE district.

If this operational referendum were to pass BASD would fall just under the state average for the start of the 2025-2026 school year. The data below is for the 2024-2025 school year. It is important to note that even districts ABOVE the state average do not believe they have enough dollars to operate for their schools. They too (Waterford, Lake Geneva, and Wilmot Districts) are asking for operational referendums yet fall above the state average. I share this as we are being conservative and just asking to fall close to the state average with this operational referendum.

Due to the referendum failing last year, the district needed to cut $5 million dollars from our budget going into the 2024-2025 school year. The following are all of the cuts that took place, many of which you may have felt or noticed as a family within BASD. None of these cuts are things we wanted to have to do, however, once the operational referendum did not pass (February 2024) we had to execute cuts to balance our budget. We were not "threatening" the community (as I had heard a few times over the past year). We were and are sharing the reality of the funding gap for public education in the state of Wisconsin. We will continue to face a financial cliff without operational referendum dollars to keep programming as we move forward.

The following were the cuts made going into the 2024-2025 school year to balance our budget:

• Closed Lyons Center Elementary School
• Reduced staff by 39 employees (this was on top of previous cuts in the past 2 years with a total in staffing cuts of 54 employees).
• Increased class sizes (class averages were 22, now averages are 28)
• Changed grade configuration
  • Dyer: 4K, 5K-4 (was 4K-5)
  • Waller, Winkler: 5K-4 (was 4K-5)
  • Karcher: 5-8 (was 6-8)
• Redistricted students (4K-4)
• Shortened the school year
  • Student days from 178 to 167
• Increased student registration fees, extracurricular fees, and community use fees
• This was necessary to generate some revenue to help offset the $5 million deficit.
• Decreased building and department budgets
• Reduced fund balance
• Example: A fund balance for districts is like your own checking account. A fund balance is needed to pay for expenses across the district. If you don't have enough money in your checking account you have to short term borrow - that is what the district is having to do, short term borrowing which leads to increased interest payments that could otherwise go to student programming.
• Delayed maintenance
• Example: When you delay an oil change on your own car - over and over again - you may end up with more issues for your vehicle down the road versus taking care of the oil change right away. Because the district is financially tight we are delaying "oil changes" across the district as we do not have enough funds to take care of all of the facility needs across the district. This will, over time, cause larger facility problems and/or larger costs in the future.

• The district needs an operational referendum to pay for day to day expenses. Over the years, inflation has taken place (for everything nation wide). However, dollars to districts have not kept up with the rate of inflation - that is why we are needing dollars to operate.
• When you go to Menards to buy a 2x4, that 2x4 has increased in price since 2009, right?! Because of the state imposed revenue limit we are not able to go above the revenue cap. We cannot just increase how much it costs to educate students (we cannot increase the price of a 2x4 like Menards can because of the state imposed revenue cap).
• However, you have probably heard , "Wait - I think districts can increase their dollars collected! I have heard or seen that in the news." Yes, districts can increase the per pupil amount through the use of an operational referendum. This would essentially increase the amount of money we have per pupil (increase the cost to education students, like Menard's increases the cost of a 2x4) to keep up with inflationary costs and ensure our expenses match our revenues.

• So, to figure out what the community would potentially support, the board agreed to use a survey. A survey was sent to Burlington residents in May 2024. The Board and District then used that data to inform our decisions for the third attempt at an operational referendum ask to the community.
• The survey results were statistically significant, meaning, we had enough residents turn in the survey to be considered a valid sample size of the community. This was step number one to ensure we were able to utilize the community survey to inform decisions.
• Then, the board looked to see who took the survey. It was important to note who voted yes or no for the February 2024 referendum as we wanted to capture a good representation from all groups to assist with decision making. The below graph shows that we had a good cross section of the community and were pleased to see that 47% of people who took the survey were non-parents and voted no for the February 2024 operational referendum.

• Additionally, the survey asked if the community would support a non-recurring (has an end date) or a recurring (does not have an end date) referendum. This was important as the district's first operational referendum ask (that did not pass) was a non-recurring referendum. The second operational ask (that did not pass) was a recurring referendum. So, which type of referendum would the community support? The graph below shows that the community (at this time) has shown support for a non-recurring operational referendum.

• The last important piece from the survey was to ask the community what dollar amount would they support? The community was able to give feedback for $6 million, $5 million, or $4 million dollars for an operational referendum.
• 52.5% of the community said they would support a $5 million operational referendum.
• 58% of the community said they would support a $4 million operational referendum.
• The school board unanimously decided to listen to the community feedback from the survey and are putting a 3 year non-recurring $4.6 million operational referendum on the ballot come April 1, 2025 for voters to decide.

• The average projected tax increase is $9 per $100,000 of property value per year.
• You can use THIS tax calculator to determine your tax increase from this operational referendum.

• Ensure safe / well-kept schools
• First and foremost we focus on safety first for our students and staff. We need to have operational dollars to address needs as they arise to continue to support the academic and behavioral goals we have across the district.
• Maintain / reduce class sizes
• Our classes have gone from 22 students on average across the district to 28 students on average. Our largest class sizes are within our 5th grade sections at the middle school with classes of 31-33 students per class. This is a good example of 1-3 overall staffing adjustments we would like to make if the community were to support this referendum to bring class sizes down in a few select areas.
• Maintain classroom programs
• One of our core beliefs is to be a comprehensive K-12 system. In order to continue to provide comprehensive offerings to students across BASD we will need dollars to maintain the programming already in place.
• Retain / attract high quality staff
• We want to continue to KEEP our strong staff here in BASD and attract others to join our amazing team! In order to do that we need to keep up with market rate comparables within the world of education along with focusing on ensuring we work to bring down health insurance costs. Educators used to have awesome insurance plan but that is no longer the case. Our staff have an $8,000 deductible, which is comparable to the private sector.
• Address rising inflation
• Since 2009 the state of Wisconsin has not provided public schools with dollars to match inflationary changes. Because of that, all districts are receiving $3,300 less per student than schools should be as this $3,300 would get us matched to inflation. This is one piece to the state funding problem that impacts public school systems.

• STAFF AND PROGRAM CUTS:
  • Reduction of 15-20 more staff.
    • This would be on top of the 54 employee reductions in the last 3 years. 39 of those staff reductions took place going into this school year.
    • If this operational referendum does not pass it WILL reduce student programs
      • Limiting students' exposure to critical academic areas along with fine arts, STEM, and career opportunities essential for success in an evolving workforce.
• INCREASE FEES:
  • BASD will need to continue to increase student extracurricular and community use fees.
• REDUCE TRANSPORTATION:
  • Eliminate bus routes (public & private). The elimination of any bus routes will cause students to ride on the bus longer - both before school and after school.
• REDUCE RESOURCES:
  • Educating students does have a material cost to it in regards to curricular and instructional resources that we need to teach students. We would need to continue to reduce essential materials and/or resources for our classrooms.
• FACILITY CUTS:
  • Delay maintenance = increased expenses in the future.
  • Just as you should get an oil change on your car, the district has maintenance needs to address as equipment and/or repairs are necessary throughout the years. If you were to delay your oil change on your car over time constant delaying will lead to further issues with your car over time. This too is the case across BASD. If we continue to delay maintenance we will have larger expenses in the future.

Below are the community informational meeting dates/times/locations in the event you want to learn more:

• March 5th (7:00AM)
• Community Informational Session @ District Office
• March 5th (7:00PM)
• Community Informational Session @ District Office
• March 10th (6:30PM)
• Town of Dover Board Meeting
• March 10th (7:30PM)
• Town of Lyons Board Meeting
• March 12th (7:00 PM)
• Community Informational Session @ Veterans Terrace
• March 13th (6:30 PM)
• Town of Burlington Board Meeting

BASD REFERENDUM WEBSITE

BASD Proud,

Dr. Jill Oelslager, Superintendent

Taylor Wishau, Board President

Marlo Brown, Vice President

Paul Kobernick, Clerk

Peter Turke, Treasurer

Rosanne Hahn, Board Member

Noah Strohm, Board Member

Aubrey Thompson, Board Member