Record-high number of school referendums held this year, but approval rates are declining
On Nov. 5, Wisconsin voters approved nearly 78% of the 138 school district referendums across the state.
That’s higher than the 60% passage rate this past spring, but the percentage of K-12 referendums approved statewide has been declining since 2018, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The 70% approval rate of all school referendums this year was a 10 percentage-point decrease from 2022 and was the lowest passage rate in a midterm or presidential election year in the last decade.
But more and more districts are going to referendum as state aid has fallen far behind inflation over the last 15 years. A total of 241 questions were posed in 2024, the most ever held in a single year, according to the Policy Forum.
https://wisconsinwatch.org/2024/11/wisconsin-school-referendum-election-voters-district-public-education/