Kenosha Unified asks voters for $23 million nonrecurring referendum to close budget gap and fund safety upgrades

Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeff Weiss told attendees at a town hall that the district will ask voters on Feb. 18 whether to authorize exceeding the state revenue limit by $23,000,000 beginning with the 2025–26 school year and ending with the 2029–30 school year for nonrecurring operational purposes and debt service for safety improvements.

“We want to inform you of the issues that Kenosha Unified is facing so that you can make an informed decision on February 18,” Weiss said at the start of the presentation.

Weiss said the referendum is nonrecurring and will sunset after five years. He said the district projects a roughly $19,000,000 deficit for 2025–26 if it does not secure additional local revenue, and that a district rightsizing process implemented this year produced $10,000,000 in annual savings but did not eliminate the longer-term shortfall.

Why it matters: Weiss and other district officials told the crowd that state revenue limits have not kept pace with inflation since about 2010, that some one-time federal COVID relief (ESSER) dollars expired in September 2024, and that the combination of rising costs and the loss of those temporary funds created the current funding gap. “Nobody wants to be asking anybody to increase their property taxes,” Weiss said, adding that the district pursued…