(The Center Square) – One of Wisconsin’s Republican state representatives says that so many schools went to taxpayers for more money Tuesday shows the state’s system to pay for schools is working.
Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukehsa, said there’s nothing wrong with giving local taxpayers more control over their local schools.
“These referendums keep the power and choice for how to spend tax dollars with people in local communities,” Allen said in a statement. “Instead of a one size fits all approach to the 421 school districts in our state, school referendums allow for local communities to weigh in on decisions that most affect them. In this most recent election, only 29% of school districts went to referendum and 22% of the proposed referendums failed. These referendums proved that the will of the people does not always agree or align with the school administrators who want more taxpayer money.’
More than 100 local school districts asked voters for tax increases this fall, and about 70% of those questions passed.
Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly earlier this week said the wave of local referendum questions is proof that Wisconsin’s school funding system is broken.
“Our state legislature has severely underfunded public schools for well over a decade, and it has led to a record number of districts going to referendum to try and fix severe financial constraints on their own. Too many communities were forced to vote Tuesday whether to increase property taxes just so their local schools can pay staff, heat and cool their buildings, and provide a quality education,” Underly said.
Allen countered by saying local taxpayers should be the ones to decide how much they want to pay for their local schools.
“School referendums also protect the taxpayers of the other 400 some school districts from paying for the proposed increase of one district. The total proposed referendum spending across all 121 districts was nearly $4.3 billion. The referendums that failed saved those local taxpayers $883 million, and the referendums that passed will be felt principally by the local communities that voted for them instead of all the state taxpayers who did not get a chance to vote,” Allen said. “School referendums give local districts the right to ask the local taxpayer to pay more in taxes. This is exactly as it should be.”