La Crosse School Board
By
At least the school board in La Crosse recognizes there are concerns.
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Published – Monday, November 15, 2004
Board to discuss referendum’s shortcomings among voters
By GAYDA HOLLNAGEL of the La Crosse Tribune
The La Crosse School Board tonight will be looking at why its $38.1 million school referendum plan failed to win approval from voters in the Nov. 2 election.
The plan, which would have allowed the district to close five older elementary schools and build two new ones and complete $10.7 million in repairs and renovations at other schools, lost by 555 votes. The final count was 15,876 to 16,431.
Woody Wiedenhoeft, associate superintendent of business services, said Friday that tonight’s session likely will involve members of the board and administration sharing information about the referendum as well as passing along comments from the public. “There’ll be a great deal of reflection and discussion and listening to each other,” Wiedenhoeft said.
Board members also will have to begin thinking about what their next steps should be in order to resolve the issues the referendum was designed to address, Wiedenhoeft said. Those issues include keeping five aging elementary schools going in a period of declining enrollment and taking care of maintenance and capital improvement needs at all district schools.
Districts used to borrow for capital improvements but now, under state law, they must go to voters through a referendum for approval to borrow for long-range capital improvements. Solutions could include closing of one or more elementary schools and restructuring school boundaries, board members and school officials have said. Officials also have said there is a possibility of bringing another referendum to voters next year.
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And the top 10 reasons for a referendum in Lacrosse are:
10 You can’t cut corner’s with kid’s!
9 But they question whether some of the more expensive projects, like expanding cafeterias, kitchens and commons areas at Central and Logan high schools and Longfellow Middle School, are needed.
8 Wiedenhoeft said the reason for the levy increase for the 2004-05 operating budget is that the school district received $1 million less in state aid this year than in 2003.
7 “If we had received the $1 million, the levy would have stayed the same,” he said.
6 “The majority of these things are not wish-list items. They’re needs,” Hughes said
5 “Anything over 350 to us is too large for elementary,” said Steve Gores of Save Our (Neighborhood) Schools, a citizen group formed to oppose the referendum. “We’d like to keep them at 350 or lower.
4 “We can spend $34 million keeping these (older) schools going, and 15 years from now, what you see is what you get,”
3 Superintendent Jerry Kember said maintaining the existing buildings, which date back to the 1950s or earlier, could be done, but it would take money away from educational programs parents have said they want.
2 If approved, the referendum plan would save $1.3 million a year in operational and staffing costs, Kember said. That money would be used for instructional materials and programs.
1 If passed, it would be the third school tax increase this year.
Sounds like they need a better task force. Maybe Roy Boy can head down to La Crosse and try to help them out. Come to think of it, maybe we can pay for Roy to transfer to La Crosse permanently. It sure would save us alog of money and we wouldn’t have to look at all of his obnoxious yard signs anymore!
Only in wisconsin can a $38 million referendum save the taxpayers $1.3 millionn a year! P&I payments must be $3 million or more alone, not accounting for the increase in administration and staffing that they will take on.
Besides, it was ONLY going to be the thrid tax increase in a year.
Maybe Roy Boy will just pay the tax increase, and then he won’t have to move.
Maybe his faithful companion Dick can help him out and explain to the taxpayers in LaCrosse that the reason they will owe $38 million more next year is because the state didn’t give it to them, so they were forced to go to the taxpayers to make up the $38 millionn deficit the state created! Go Dick!
And I thought I was hard on the socialist pair of Playboy Roy and Little Dick! You go gettum boy o roy!