Carolyn Fath Ashby
Madison's four high schools, including East (above), are older buildings in need of maintenance and upgrades.
There are actually two questions on the fall ballot. One would authorize $317 million in capital spending to fix up school buildings and build a new one and the other asks to exceed state spending caps by $33 million over the next four years for various program expansions to be determined.
But here’s the thing. Unless you’ve been following this stuff closely, you would have no idea what this actually means for your tax bill. The referendum questions include only the gross dollar amounts, but no information about what it will cost the average homeowner.
If both referendums are approved, taxes on the average $311,000 home would go up a whopping $470 or so when the new spending is fully implemented in a few years. If every voter knew that it would make it a tougher sell, which is why, I suspect, that information isn’t on the ballot.
Almost $500 is a lot to ask for in any year, but in the context of COVID-induced furloughs, pay reductions and outright job losses this may be an even harder sell than usual. Nonetheless, more information is always better. The Legislature loves to mess around in local government and shortchange local control in counter-productive ways. But one thing they should do is mandate that all referendum questions include information on the impact to the tax bill on the average home in the community.
My guess is that an awful lot of voters will vote for these referendums and then be shocked when they see how much their taxes go up. It’s always better to be upfront with voters. And I’d bet that, while this information would narrow the margin, the referendums would pass anyway. That’s because the school board chose to move ahead now, even amid the COVID-19 crisis, because they know that a presidential election year comes along just once in four years. Turnout will be huge and, in Madison, it will overwhelmingly favor the Democrat Joe Biden. Those are the kind of voters who support public schools.
The district knew this four years ago, the last time it went out with a referendum, and it passed by a margin of nearly three to one. In fact, the last time a referendum was defeated here was in 2005 — not a presidential election year.
For myself, I’ve never voted against a school referendum. I believe that, next to the UW and maybe state government, the Madison public schools are the most crucial institution in our community. I always thought it was worth the investment no matter the price. But I have to say that I’m having more trouble coming to a decision this year.
The first reason is that price tag. While I can handle it okay, I’m reluctant to impose that kind of burden on my fellow Madisonians who have lost their jobs, suffered pay cuts or have small businesses teetering on the brink. Apart from whether or not the new revenue is justified, the sheer increase in the tax burden is an issue that shouldn’t be ignored. This ranks as one of the most expensive ballot proposals in state history.
The second reason is that I don’t like the direction of this school board and I’m not excited about giving them more spending power, especially on the operations side. Their decision to eliminate school resource officers in the four high schools, and to do so before they had any plan regarding how to ensure school safety without them, was irresponsible. And the overall morale of teachers and administrators is low in large part because the administration fails to back them up in disciplinary issues. Nobody can learn in a chaotic environment and the board doesn’t seem to have any interest in confronting that reality.
Finally, they’ve made so little progress on the racial achievement gap that in August a group of Black leaders came out against the referendums to send a message. They note that 90% of Black students cannot read or do math at grade level. In their statement they write, “We have not been presented with evidence that links additional public expenditures with increasing the academic performance of African American students. More of the same for African American students is unacceptable.”
That’s an especially powerful statement given that the district is saying that it will use much of the new spending authority to address the achievement gap. These Black leaders seem to be suggesting that they’ve seen this play before with all kinds of efforts directed at this problem with little to show for them. Efforts by MMSD to address the achievement gap have a credibility gap.
All things considered, I will vote for the capital spending proposal. I have spent enough time in Madison school buildings to know they’re a mess and there’s nothing ideological about replacing old heating systems and putting in windows that don’t leak. Moreover, those spending priorities are already pretty well locked in and known.
But do I trust this school board to do effective things with the $33 million in new operating revenue? The details of how that money would be spent would be decided each year in the operating budget. And while the case for the capital spending is compelling, MMSD officials say that without the new operating budget authority they would have to work harder to find grants or make some hard decisions about priorities. That’s what local governments should do. Some budget pressure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
In any event, every taxpayer should know what it means for their bottom line tax bill. The Legislature should require districts to put that information right into the questions.
Carolyn Fath Ashby
Madison's four high schools, including East (above), are older buildings in need of maintenance and upgrades.
