Almost 40% of this year’s Wisconsin school referendums were retries of referendums that had previously failed, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The organization released a report April 11 that said those retries were second, third or even fourth attempts to get referendums approved. The report said this speaks to the financial and political pressures school districts face.
Here’s what to know.
How many school districts had referendums in 2025, and how many of them passed?
There were 94 referendums statewide in spring 2025, and voters passed 53, or 56.4%, of them, the report said. Referendums can be for operational costs or facilities. Operational referendums help districts fund daily operations. Associated tax increases for approved referendums can be set for a limited time or permanently. Facility referendums allow districts to borrow money to pay for building or renovation projects.
The Wisconsin Policy Forum said the 56.4% approval rate for 2025 is slightly higher than than the nearly 55% of referendums voters approved in 2023.
That approval rate is the lowest in a non-presidential or mid-term election year since 2011, the report said.
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How many referendums did the forum consider retries?
The Forum said its analysis found 36 of the referendum this year were retries of previously failed referendums. It defined a retry as a district going back to referendum within two years of a failed referendum for the same purpose. The group also said if a retry fails, it considers subsequent efforts within two years to be ongoing retries.
Seventeen of those retried referendums, just under half, of the retried referendums passed this year, the forum said.
What do districts do in their retry attempts?
The forum wrote that districts may lower the dollar amount, change the question or, for capital referendums, ask for fewer or different capital projects or split the original multi-part request into smaller parts.
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Political signs in a yard in Oshkosh on Election Day April 1, 2025.
How many of the operational referendums were retries?
The report said 25 of 62 operational referendums this year were retries; 12 of those retries passed.
There were 11 capital retry referendums, including in Spring Valley and Wautoma, that were split into multiple questions. Both questions in Spring Valley passed, while both questions in Wautoma failed. All told, five of the 11 capital referendums passed.
Examples of notable retry referendums included the Mauston School District, where voters passed an operational referendum on the third try in a year. It had told voters that if it did not pass, the district would dissolve. Two previous attempts, in April and November 2024, failed.
The forum pointed to Arrowhead Union High School as an example where a retry on a facilities referendum failed. Voters denied Arrowhead’s $136.2 million facilities referendum just months after they also voted down a $261.2 million referendum in November, the report said.
How much funding was approved in 2025?
Statewide, voters approved $950.8 million in new funding. Of that amount, voters approved $509.1 million in capital referendums and $441.7 million in operational referendums.
Of the 10 largest referendums by dollar amount, only Oshkosh, Racine and Port-Washington-Saukville passed, while Arrowhead, Kenosha, Sheboygan Falls, Beloit and Fond du Lac failed, the report said.
Oshkosh had a $197.8 million facilities referendum; Racine had a $190 million nonrecurring operational referendum and Port Washington-Saukville had a $59.4 million facilities referendum on the April ballot.
What type of referendums is most common?
The report said more referendums have focused on operations over time due to budget pressures such as inflation, state-imposed revenue limits, pandemic aid disappearing and now a more uncertain economic future.
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How many Wisconsin school referendums passed in April 2025? Oshkosh was one