Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
Voters across Wisconsin approved 46 of 75 school district referenda this spring, a 61.3% approval rate that aligns with a recent downward trend.
A recent Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis also found the state’s overall system for financing K-12 schools, along with recent increases in the number of referenda, has contributed to a widening gap between school districts receiving the most and least funding under state revenue limits. This raises questions about the system’s fairness and equitability.
Across 75 ballot questions from the spring general elections, unofficial election results show that Wisconsin voters approved 46 school district referenda. These ballot initiatives ask voters to raise their own property taxes to pay for day-to-day school district operations – on either a temporary or permanent basis – or to issue debt used to finance building and renovation projects.
This 61.3% approval rate is not a final figure for 2026, since fall elections have yet to take place. If the rate were to hold through the fall elections, it would be a substantial decrease from the 70.1% approval rate in 2024. It would also be the lowest approval rate of any even-numbered year since 2010. Among spring elections only, it is the second-lowest approval rate in an even-numbered year since 2010’s 55.0%, coming in a tick above 2024’s 60.2%. Approval rates tend to be higher in even-numbered years, when midterm and presidential elections are on the ballot.
In this brief, we find a K-12 funding system in Wisconsin that may no longer be fulfilling some policy goals, as frequent use of referenda contribute to growing disparities in district funding. These referenda take place against a backdrop of gradually increasing disparities in the amount of funding that school districts are allowed to raise per child from their two largest revenue sources: local property taxes and state general school aid.
State caps on the combined amount of property taxes and state school aids, known as revenue limits, were originally set in 1993 and based on each district’s spending level at the time. In each state budget, lawmakers and the governor determine by how much the revenue limit will change, on a per pupil basis, for all districts. In 2009, lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle decoupled per pupil revenue limits from inflation, and since that time, they have not kept pace with inflation.
The Forum measured the gap between the districts with the largest and smallest per pupil revenue limits, and we found the gap has grown over the last 20 years. In 2005, districts at the 90th percentile had a per pupil revenue limit that was 24.6% ($1,932) higher than their counterparts at the 10th percentile. By 2025, however, that difference had increased to 37.6% ($4,402).
Some amount of variation between districts’ revenue limits is expected and appropriate. However, a brief examination suggests neither student need nor cost of living explain all of these differences.
For the 17th straight year, pending the results of the fall election, Wisconsin voters are on track to approve the majority of school district referenda sought. However, the large share of operating referenda on ballots — coupled with lower approval rates and a widening gap between school districts with higher and lower revenue limits — suggest that the current system is not always meeting the needs of students, local taxpayers, and school districts.
This information is provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members as a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
