VIDEO: Viroqua Schools Administrator makes the case for operational referendum at public information meeting

VIROQUA, Wis. – Viroqua Schools Administrator Tom Burkhalter gave a presentation to about 40 voters at the Viroqua High School/Middle School last week and said state funding formulas and limits are forcing his district to go to voters for the second time in less than a year to renew an operational referendum in order to avoid about $900,000 cuts to staff and/or services. Viroqua approved an operational referendum in 2020 that will expire at the end of this school year.

A list of frequently asked referendum questions can be found here.

Burkhalter said the outdated and inequitable state funding formula in Wisconsin, created by Governor Tommy Thompson in 1992 has not been updated since 1992 and that created a system of “winners and losers” among school districts. Burkhalter said that state aid formula tied to that arbitrary 1992 base cost, and rising costs of operation have led most districts in Wisconsin to rely on operating referendums. Burkhalter said 88 percent of districts across the state are forced to go to referendum.

Burkhalter went on to explain that the revenue limit set in 1992 has not been adjusted for inflation since 2009, leading to a system where costs per student vary widely across the state, and the only way for districts to increase their budget is through local property taxpayers.

“It created a system, system of winners and losers in 1993 because it didn’t tell schools in 1992 that they were going to take this snapshot,” said Burkhalter. “They just didn’t. And so if you were doing a building project or spending a lot of money in 1992 you were a high revenue district. If you were being frugal and fiscally responsible in 1992, you now were a low revenue district. It did not matter where you were in the state. It did not matter how much things cost in your area. It did not matter. It created a system of winners and losers.”

Burkhalter said the system of state revenue was altered again in 2009 to make it harder to keep up.

“Now it was still a system that you could at least budget on, because every year, your bottle got a little bit bigger based upon the cost of inflation,” said Burkhalter. “And so if CPI or the consumer price index went up 3% your bottle got 3% bigger. It went up 5% your bottle got 5% bigger. If it went up 1% your bottle got 1% bigger. So you were not ever going to get ahead, but you also were never going to fall behind. And so that’s a that’s a piece that, okay, so we’re surviving. We’re not thriving in districts, but we’re surviving in the state of Wisconsin. Until 2009 under the Walker administration. Under the Walker administration, they essentially said you are no longer getting inflationary increases. You’re not getting any increases. Live within your means, and the only lever that you have to get a bigger bottle now is to go to your local property taxpayers and ask for a bigger bottle.”

Burkhalter said if the district had been allowed to adjust their budget to inflation each year since 2009 they would be collecting an additional $3.3 million a year.

Viroqua School District has been on an operational referendum since 2004, with multiple renewals in 2010, 2015, and 2020. The 2020 referendum will expire this year and the district is asking for $1.3 million per year to maintain current staffing and benefits.

“We don’t feel like this is, this isn’t a huge ask'” said Burkhalter. “You know when you look at some neighboring districts, and the dollar figures that they’ve been able to get approved, this sort of fails in comparison to that.”

Burkhalter said the district has already made significant cuts and asked staff to make sacrifices to make ends meet.

“Over the last two years, we’ve, we’ve had to make really, really tough decisions,” said Burkhlater. “So our insurance, I’m not proud of what I’m going to say. That’s what we had to do. Our insurance, for our staff, deductibles doubled and premiums doubled. That’s not a popular conversation. Don’t know if you’ve ever been a part of that or on this side of that. It’s not a very popular conversation. The second thing was we had major reductions, and so last year alone, we reduced six teachers. That does not mean that we fired six teachers, but through attrition, we did not fill six teaching positions. Kind of put that in perspective, we have about 95 teachers total on staff. When you look at those cuts, those are real in the last five years, we’re down 10 teachers now. You can say, hey, you have declining enrollment. No, we don’t. We have, we don’t have declining enrollment. We’re up.”

Burkhalter said while many districts are seeing declining enrollment the Viroqua district added four students to their census this year.

The other factor Burkhalter pointed to that drives up costs in particular for Viroqua are vouchers. Burkhalter was clear that he was not apposed to private education, and said he previously worked at private schools, but he did object to virtual private schools that take money from the district and goes out of town. About one out of every seven dollars that the district collects locally goes to private schools according to Burkhalter. In addition, the cost of to fund those schools ends up you tax bill and it looks like it is going to Viroqua public schools, but it is not.

“So on your tax bill, it says Viroqua Area Schools on it, and that money is not coming to us,” said Burkhalter. “So what is that impact for us? It’s $952,000 out of our local our local tax levy. We are in the top five of districts percentage wise of our total tax levy that are going to vouchers. So what does that what does that mean? It means one out of every $7 on your bill that says rural area schools is not coming to rural areas schools. It is, in fact, going to a private school. It is not solely a conversation of local private schools. And I think that that’s really important that we talk about this. We do have one voucher school in the within the district, and they do receive vouchers. They do not receive all of our vouchers at all, nowhere close to that. So where is the money going? And so some of it does go to the Waldorf school in town. Some of it goes to private high schools up in the La Crosse area, Luther Aquinas and Coulee Region Christian and then we also have a large chunk, and we can’t ever figure out exactly the dollar amount, because we don’t get to know who these students are. We don’t really know where they are. We don’t know where they’re coming from. The piece that is really disturbing is the word that I will use is we have hundreds of 1000s of dollars, all I can get out of DPI, coming from our district, going to a private virtual school in Milwaukee, and there they are targeting home school families. So this is not students that are leaving the public school district to go to a private school district or private school these are students that have never attended Viroqua Area Schools, that have never been on the tax bill for anyone within the Viroqua School District, and are now having that money go out of our district and to a virtual private school in Milwaukee to the tune that that is the largest voucher school in the state right now, and their budget is over $40 million.”

Burkhalter again emphasized that there is a place for private schools that are a part of our community, but if the money leaves the district, that is a different scenario.

“Let me make sure that we understand this,” said Burkhalter. “We have partners in the district, within the Waldorf school that give us great benefit by being members of our community. By being part of this community, that money stays here. That’s a different conversation than hundreds of 1000s of dollars leaving our district to go to a virtual private school. I can’t unsee when I go to their website of this particular school that says, redirect your taxes to your child. Problem is the cost of a high school voucher right now is $12,500. Not many people are paying 12,500 in property taxes, especially to the local public school. You’re not redirecting just your taxes, you’re redirecting everybody’s taxes.”

Impact of vouchers on district costs.

Impact to property taxes and mill rate compared to other districts.

There will be another public information meeting about the referendum on Monday, March 10 at 6:30 p.m at the HS/MS – Room 229.