Viroqua Common Council rejects tax bill voucher disclosure proposal

Aug. 28, 2026

By Tim Hundt

VIROQUA Wis. – The Viroqua Common Council voted Tuesday August 25 to reject a proposal to add information to property tax bills that would show how much money is diverted from the Viroqua Area School District to fund private school tuition vouchers. But the council did not rule out taking up the issue again at a future meeting if a more concrete option is presented to them about how to show taxpayers more detailed information on where their tax dollars are going.

The decision followed a lengthy and passionate debate during the regular council session, drawing extensive comments from local educators, private school administrators, county officials, and concerned citizens.

The issue was brought forward during a presentation by local resident and public education advocate Kristina Reser-Jaynes. Reser-Jaynes explained that public money funding tuition for private voucher schools is currently bundled into the public education portion of property tax bills, which she argued is misleading.

“My issue is that the public money funding tuition for private voucher schools is included in the public education portion of our property tax bills,” said Reser-Jaynes. “I believe this is misrepresenting where our tax dollars are actually going.”

Reser-Jaynes pointed out that state-mandated private school voucher programs, including the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program and the Special Needs Scholarship Program, are funded through state aid deductions that directly reduce local public school revenues.

“The statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program and the Special Needs Scholarship Program are all funded through state aid deductions,” said Reser-Jaynes. “These deductions reduce local public school district revenues.”

State legislation attempts fail

Reser-Jaynes explained that the push to separate private school voucher costs from public education taxes is not a new idea in Wisconsin. She pointed out that proposals to separate these distinct costs on property tax bills have been introduced repeatedly in Madison over the past ten years but have never even been allowed a public discussion.

“Legislation to require separating the aid reduction caused by education vouchers from the public education portion on the property tax bills has been introduced in the state legislature for the past decade,” said Reser-Jaynes. “But it has never even received a public hearing.”

Because state lawmakers have repeatedly stalled on the issue, Reser-Jaynes argued that Viroqua and other local municipalities must step up to provide this basic financial clarity on their own.

“This is why I feel it’s incumbent on us to take action at a local level,” said Reser-Jaynes. “We can no longer wait for them to legislate.”

She emphasized that local action has become especially urgent because the statewide voucher enrollment caps that previously limited the percentage of students participating in the program are set to expire.

“Although I have always found this issue to be of transparency troubling, what spurred me into action at this time is the fact that since 2017, when the voucher program was expanded statewide, there has been an enrollment cap limiting the percentage of students in the district that could participate in the voucher program,” said Reser-Jaynes. “This coming year, this coming school year, the caps fall off.”

Reser-Jaynes concluded that with these enrollment limits disappearing, Viroqua area taxpayers deserve to see an honest and clear accounting of how much local tax revenue is being redirected.

“There will be no limit to the number of vouchers per district,” said Reser-Jaynes. “I feel it is more important than ever to give property taxpayers a more honest understanding of where their tax tax dollars are going.”

Local options

Reser-Jaynes noted that Viroqua does not have to reinvent the wheel, citing other Wisconsin municipalities that have recently taken action to separate these costs.

“Last spring the Green Bay City Council voted to support adding a line under the note portion of the tax bill,” said Reser-Jaynes. “This was an effort for clarity and transparency. Since then other Wisconsin cities have taken similar action to address this issue, either through a line on the tax bill or through inserts included in the tax bill envelope. This includes Milwaukee, South Milwaukee, Racine, Eau Claire, Sheboygan, Bayview, Washburn, and Ashland.”

School district representatives in attendance provided context on how these state-mandated deductions impact local finances. Viroqua Area School District Director of Business Services Chris Rozeske explained that the state bills the school district for the voucher payments.

“We refer to this as our voucher number, if you will,” said Rozeske. “So, it is the amount that the DPI bills the school district every year for private school vouchers.”

Rozeske explained that because the school district cannot afford to cover these costs on its own, the district claims a state-allowed revenue limit exemption, which passes the financial burden directly to local property taxpayers.

“Every district in the state also has the ability to be able to claim a revenue limit exemption for this number,” said Rozeske. “So, essentially, by claiming that exemption, that dollar figure is passed directly to the taxpayer.”

Rozeske added that these state-mandated costs are bundled into the overall school tax rate, which complicates local budgeting and forces public schools to seek operational referendums to keep pace with inflation.

“This comes as part of the conversation when we are talking about our mill rate,” said Rozeske. “This is an additional cost for education that taxpayers have to pay.”

Public school board members and local teachers also spoke in favor of the transparency proposal. School Board Member Kim Littel, speaking as an individual, emphasized that public schools must accept and accommodate every student who walks through their doors, while private voucher schools do not face the same legal obligations.

“They need to understand the public school educates everybody,” said Littel. “Private schools do not face the same requirements.”

Littel noted that the proposal was strictly about providing property owners with a clear understanding of where their tax dollars are going, rather than debating the merits of private education.

“This is really about transparency,” said Littel. “It doesn’t change where the money goes.”

However, the proposal faced skepticism from private school administrators. Matt Voz, the administrator of Youth Initiative High School, argued that private schools are highly regulated, meet state standards, and serve as an important engine for local economic growth and community vibrancy.

“These voucher schools are heavily regulated,” said Voz. “They are accountable to state standards in many of the same ways that public schools are.”

Voz questioned the fairness of highlighting only voucher payments on property tax bills, arguing that selecting a single expenditure for disclosure amounts to targeted transparency rather than full disclosure.

“Putting just the private payout to the voucher program on the tax bill doesn’t feel like transparency to me,” said Voz. “That feels like targeted transparency.”

Reser-Jaynes disagreed with Voz and said private voucher schools operate under a completely different set of rules than public institutions, but the issue was really about transparency.

“They (private schools) do not have the same accountability as public schools, but that isn’t the issue we’re talking about right now,” said Reser-Jaynes. “The issue that we’re talking about is transparency. Like, how many of you knew that your tax dollars were going to fund private schools? I sent my own children to a private school. I have nothing against it, and I understand the value of the public schools in our community.”

Next, Reser-Jaynes challenged Vos’s claims about equal accountability by pointing to the public’s right to know. She explained that unlike public districts, which must make their complete financial records available to any citizen, private voucher schools are under no such obligation, meaning local taxpayers are left in the dark about how their money is managed.

“Like public schools, you can go to the DPI and look at the public school budget,” Reser-Jaynes said. “You can see it all. It is transparent. It’s all available. It’s public information, and that is not true of voucher schools.”

She also raised concerns about local money leaving Vernon County entirely. While public tax dollars are meant to support the local community, she noted that the statewide voucher system allows funds to be funneled to distant virtual schools that local residents have no democratic control over.

“But your tax dollars are also going to the Academy of Excellence in Milwaukee or wherever, because some of these schools are online,” Reser-Jaynes pointed out.

Ultimately, Reser-Jaynes concluded her rebuttal by arguing that the local public school district should not have to shoulder the “burden” of these statewide policy decisions on property tax bills, as it gives local residents a misleading picture of where their education taxes are actually going.

“I don’t think that the public school should carry that burden alone on the tax bill, and and that isn’t saying anything bad about the school, any school,” Reser-Jaynes said. “It’s just saying this is where your money’s going. There’s nobody in this room that has anything bad to say, I’m sure, about the good schools we have in our community. We just think people should understand how the money is being spent.”

Logistical and financial hurdles

Vernon County Treasurer Karen DeLap explained that the county’s billing software is constrained by character limits and cannot easily disaggregate different dollar amounts for multiple school districts within a single municipality.

“When they did that, they had to abbreviate a lot of things, which caused a lot of confusion to the taxpayers,” said DeLap. “So, because our systems don’t allow for a lot of notes, they had to abbreviate.”

DeLap added that modifying the computerized tax system to accommodate the new line item would require programming changes and carry unbudgeted costs.

“They’d have to make changes to the program, and there would be a cost associated,” said DeLap. “Our system isn’t smart enough to figure that out.”

City Clerk Lori Polhamus voiced similar warnings, explaining that the back of the property tax bill is state mandated and cannot be customized by local governments.

“The back of the tax bill is actually state mandated,” said Polhamus. “So, that’s probably not an option.”

Polhamus also noted that adding a physical paper insert to the tax envelope would require paying third-party printing and sorting fees, which would increase postage costs and potentially delay the mailing of the tax bills.

“We use a third party that actually stuffs and sends out our tax bills,” said Polhamus. “So if we add another insert, that is going to increase our postage.”

Polhamus explained that many property owners, including out-of-town owners of short-term rentals, do not read paper inserts, making it an inefficient use of city resources.

“They don’t look at that information half the time when they send their payment back,” said Polhamus. “I don’t think that that’s the greatest use of our resources.”

Viroqua Area School District Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Hill raised additional concerns about the geographic scope of the resolution, noting that the school district spans several neighboring townships that would not be bound by a city-only resolution.

“This one municipality is all Viroqua Area Schools, but Viroqua Area Schools includes several municipalities,” said Hill. “It would be very difficult for the county to try to disaggregate and break apart.”

Hill said his board is only just learning of the proposal and would need to time to cinsider the idea before weighin in on poetntial options.

Council members debated the merits of the proposal and the appropriate role of the city in public education campaigns. Alderperson Kyle Bartelt suggested that while public schools need support, property tax bills are not the appropriate vehicle for political or educational outreach.

“I’m not sure that this methodology of pushing that education campaign out to the public makes sense to me,” said Bartelt. “I don’t know that I want to put all that in the tax bill.”

Alderperson Tanja Birke proposed a compromise, suggesting that the city could publish a pie chart on its website or Facebook page to illustrate how each tax dollar is distributed among various departments and public entities.

“I remember asking if we could do one of those pie charts so people could see, like, for every dollar of your tax money, how much of that goes to different departments,” said Birke. “So, finding the way that actually gets the information to people is more important.”

As the discussion drew to a close, council members expressed a desire to move forward to other business. Alderperson Cyndy Hubbard made a motion to continue studying the issue, but she quickly voiced her frustration with the procedural obstacles and called for an immediate vote.

“Why don’t we just vote on it so we can move on,” said Hubbard. “We spent a lot of time on it.”

Hubbard’s motion to continue working on the tax bill transparency proposal failed in a 9-0 roll call vote, effectively halting further action by the city on the matter. Birke added after the vote her willinginess to consider the issue again if a firm proposal were brought forward on how to accomplish more transparency.

Following the vote, Mayor Krista Browne acknowledged the logistical constraints explained by county staff but expressed her frustration with the lack of legislative action at the state level. Browne offered to volunteer her own personal time as a citizen to draft a resolution and collaborate with local partners.

“We’re working within systems that we learned from Karen and the county of what is possible to put on a tax bill,” said Browne. “We have only so many hours in a day to do the work of using tax dollars to take care of, maintain, and do projects for public good.”

Browne concluded the session by emphasizing her commitment to public transparency and advocating for local taxpayer education.

“I am saying this out of frustration, however, also encouragement that we focus on what we can do here together,” said Browne. “If we want to see a resolution, I hope that people will know that I want to work on that, and if someone wants to work on that with me, I will volunteer my time.”