Wisconsin’s bills require transparency, justice in the school referendums – the lion

(Central Square) – a pair of Wisconsin legislators insist on more transparency in the process of referendum at school in the country.

The proposal comes after 169 out of 241 The school references during the 2024 elections were approved by voters at a price of $ 4.4 billion to taxpayers.

Senator Rachel Cabral-Guevara, R-APPLETON and respectively. Scott Alan, R-Waukesha, have proposed bills that will require local authorities and school councils to include information on the vote on how much tax difference will be for an average community home as a result of the referendum.

“Referendums are opportunities for voters to make important decisions about how their tax dollars should be spent,” Alan said. “Good decision making requires transparency in the information provided to voters.”

A second bill will protect school districts from loss of state funding when other areas go to a referendum.

“For many, it was shocked to learn that the large -scale referendum on the Milwaukee school would take away the vital state funding from over 300 other school areas,” Alan said. “It is fair that only the big referendums in one area should not negatively affect other school districts.”

A A legislative fiscal desk report Last year analyzed by Institute for a dishHe showed that the $ 252 million Milwaukee referendum would cost Madison, Wowsha and Racine $ 2 million a year state funding, while Appleton and West Band would lose more than $ 1 million each year.

The impact is due to the equalization of the tax base, which means that “the rate of tax on the ownership of the school area does not depend on the tax base of the properties in the district, but rather on the level of expenditure.”

The bill states that every school referendum of over $ 50 million should be paid from the area that votes for the referendum instead of taking money from shared school funding.