Eau Claire voters keep approving the money, but the school district keeps running short.
We are organizing concerned residents to educate their neighbors, improve public policy at the local level, and save our schools. Are you in?
Eau Claire's educational failures: By the numbers
How far in the red the Eau Claire Area School District was heading into 2024-25. Voters approved $18 million per year in new tax revenue to close it. The district made cuts anyway in 2025-26. The referendum bought time. It did not solve the problem.
What Eau Claire voters approved in November 2024, largely to replace programs originally funded with one-time federal COVID relief money. When that temporary funding expired, the district did not find a structural solution. It asked you to become the permanent replacement.
Combined value of school tax commitments Eau Claire voters have approved since 2022, a $98.6 million building referendum in 2022 and a $72 million operating referendum in 2024. Both were described as necessary to maintain basic services. The district is still making cuts.
How much more the Eau Claire district would have to spend annually if the state's revenue limit had simply kept up with inflation since 2008. Instead, the cap was held artificially low, and now taxpayers are asked to make up the difference through referendums, year after year.
What's Driving It
Policy Failures
A Structural Budget Problem Dressed Up as a Temporary Crisis
The Eau Claire district began 2024-25 with a $13 million deficit and told voters a $72 million four-year referendum would stabilize it. By 2025-26 the district was cutting budgets again. This is not a one-time emergency. It is a recurring cycle in which the district reaches a crisis point, asks voters for relief, spends down the new revenue, and eventually returns to the same situation. Eau Claire families deserve a long-term fiscal plan, not a rolling series of ballot questions.
Pandemic Relief Money Was Spent Without a Transition Plan
Federal COVID relief funds allowed Wisconsin school districts, including Eau Claire, to launch and expand programs they could not otherwise afford. When those funds expired, districts faced a choice: cut the programs or find new money. Eau Claire chose the referendum route, asking taxpayers to permanently absorb costs that were supposed to be temporary. There was no public plan for how the district would handle the expiration of COVID funding, and families were not part of that conversation until the ballot question was already written.
Wisconsin's Revenue Cap Forces Districts Into Referendum Dependency
Since 2008, the state's cap on school district revenue has not kept pace with inflation. The Eau Claire district calculates that gap at $3,235 per student per year. Rather than updating the formula, the state has left districts to close the gap through voter-approved referendums. More than 80% of Wisconsin school districts have gone to referendum in recent years. This is not a sign of local mismanagement in each case. It is a sign of a state funding formula that was designed in a different era and has never been updated to reflect real-world costs. Eau Claire taxpayers are paying for that policy failure one ballot question at a time.
We Need Leaders Like You
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Education
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Connection
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Action
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Support
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