ECASD looks at results of operational referendum survey

EAU CLAIRE — With a survey completed on Apr. 17, the Eau Claire Area School District looked at the results as community input for the upcoming referendum.

The presentation on survey results, which was conducted by The Morris Leatherman Company, was given at the Board of Education bimonthly meeting on Monday.

At the meeting, board members also had an opportunity to hold an organizational meeting to appoint and elect roles via internal vote on the board which they would serve for one year. President Tim Nordin and Vice President Lori Bica were reelected into their roles, while Stephanie Farrar was elected as the new clerk/governance officer and Joshua Clements was elected as board treasurer.

As all the data collected came from a sample size of 400 eligible voters ranging in age, gender, voting history, economic status, parent status and geographic location, the results have an estimated margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.

Many points were brought up during the presentation, with the most significant responses being percentages about support, responses to questions and responses to potential referendum amounts.

The first part of the survey was to see who would give initial support towards a referendum out of the 400 eligible voters that participated in the survey. It listed a generic question about a referendum that could raise up to $20 million for up to five years, and approximately 55.8% said yes, 34.5% said no and the remaining 9.7% said they had no opinion towards it.

“This is a good place to start, considering the fact that the information provided is quite minimal,” said Don Lifto, who presented on behalf of Morris Leatherman Company. “Going back two years ago when we had a similar question, these numbers are within a couple percentage numbers of what they were in 2022.”

As the survey continued, another section would give details about what the referendum would be supporting and asked if that swayed their opinion on the matter. The result was that the greatest positive impacts came from informing about how the referendum would support mental health resources and elementary reading programs.

Alternatively, informing about lesson planning time and teacher and staff compensation showed a much smaller impact on the community’s opinion.

When comparing the number of people who showed initial support for a referendum to the number of people who would support a referendum after receiving more information about its impact on programs and staffing, the change was marginally positive. The number jumped from 55.8% to 58.7% of voters, as opposition to a referendum dropped by 1.2% down to 33.3%.

“The good news is that it moved up; however, it is within the margin of error… It is entirely possible that the informed is actually lower than the initial line within that margin of plus or minus 4.9%,” said Lifto. “It is very common in these surveys that the informed moves north, but often does not move outside the margin of error.”

In regards to a potential value for what the referendum could be, the survey also gave some insight into what the community was willing to support up to a certain point. Approximately 64.4% said they would support $150 annually per $200,000 of property value, 44.1% said yes for $200 and 22.9% said yes for $250.

Comparing those numbers shows that the community would be at 50% support at about $175, which would provide $16.25 million to the district.

When it came time to discuss, board member Marquell Johnson said that he did not feel that he could not support a recurring referendum which would allocate money to the district annually every following year.

Members of the board agreed that a non-recurring referendum would be best, but Clements and board member Jarrett Dement said they felt more confident in a recurring referendum.

“I think it provides an increased level of certainty for the district’s budget,” he said.

However, belief about a non-recurring putting more accountability into the district and hope for the redistricting of maps to lead towards a fix in Wisconsin’s broken public schools funding model led a majority of the members to favor a non-recurring referendum more. A final decision on the matter was not voted on, though.

Furthermore, the survey also asked community members to grade the ECASD on a typical school grading scale. Only 5% gave them a D or Fail, and approximately 64% gave them an A or B grade.

“There is really a lot of good news in this… I think the most impressive thing here is question 34, which was, ‘Do I trust the district to do what is best for kids?’ In 2022, we asked the same question and it was (about) 63%... this time it was 79%,” said Nordin. “We have principals in the audience, we have staff members in the audience, we have people up and down our district who have been doing the work over the past several years to do what is right for kids, to stand up and take care of kids every single day, and that is showing in our community.”

At the end of discussion, the board decided to look more into formulating and researching a question regarding an operational referendum of $16-$18 million as a lower number and $20-$21 million as a higher number. Not making a final decision yet, the board hopes to adopt its referendum question during their June 3 meeting.