A record year at the ballot box
In 2024, Wisconsin school districts put 241 referenda on the ballot, the most ever in a single year. The previous record of 240 had stood since 1998. Districts asked for $5.9 billion in all. Voters approved 169 questions worth $4.4 billion, and every one of those numbers was a record.
By the end of the year, 145 districts had passed at least one referendum. That is more than a third of the 421 public school districts in the state. About three quarters of the approved money, $3.3 billion, was borrowing for buildings.
How revenue limits work
Since 1993, the state has limited how much revenue each district can raise per student from state general aid and property taxes combined. The limits were locked in based on what each district happened to be spending at the time. A district that needs more than its limit allows generally has to ask its voters.
For the first fifteen years or so, the limits rose with inflation every year. That ended in 2009. Since then, the increase has been whatever the Legislature sets in each state budget. The 2021-23 budget set it at zero for both years. The budget after that allowed $325 per student.
Meanwhile payroll, heating, busing and legally required special education services keep getting more expensive whether the limit moves or not. The Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan research group, attributes the surge in referenda to that gap, and says pressure to raise wages and the end of federal pandemic aid played a part too.
When the pandemic money ran out
Wisconsin schools were allotted nearly $2.4 billion in one-time federal pandemic relief across three rounds, about $1.5 billion of it in the last round in 2021. The deadline to commit the last of it was September 2024.
Kenosha shows what came next. Superintendent Jeff Weiss told PBS Wisconsin that the way the aid was set up all but guaranteed districts would end up at referendum just to keep operating. Kenosha had already closed seven school buildings. Its $115 million referendum failed in February 2025 anyway, leaving a $19 million deficit. Weiss was blunt about where cuts land: "80% of our budget is staff."
Districts keep coming back
In spring 2025, voters across the state saw 94 school ballot questions and approved 53. Thirty-six of the 94 were retries, meaning the district had asked for the same thing within the past two years and lost. Some were on a third or fourth attempt. Fewer than half of the retries passed.
Where Elmbrook fits
Elmbrook's question on November 3 is a capital referendum. It asks permission to borrow $100 million to renovate four schools built between 1958 and 1969: Pilgrim Park Middle School, Tonawanda Elementary, Swanson Elementary and Wisconsin Hills Middle School. None of it goes to the operating budget.
Elmbrook has mostly sat this out. The district has not gone to referendum since 2008, something it says only about 4% of Wisconsin districts can claim , and in that time it paid for about $100 million in repairs and upgrades from its regular budget. That continues under the 20-year plan. The district budgets about $5 million a year for maintenance and has committed roughly $90 million over the next 15 years across every building.
Revenue limits are the reason the rest is on your ballot. The district's yearly budget is capped, and it cannot take on debt of this size without voter approval. The four renovations run from about $6 million at Wisconsin Hills to about $50 million at Pilgrim Park. Pilgrim Park alone would eat ten years of that maintenance budget.
The timing is deliberate. Debt from the 2008 high school projects will be paid off in 2028. With that retiring, the district estimates the plan would raise the mill rate by $0.11, or $11 a year per $100,000 of home value. On the district's average home value of about $600,000, that is $66 a year for 20 years.
Why Vote Yes walks through what is wrong with each building, and the FAQ covers cost and timing. If you are already a yes, request a yard sign .