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 staff and building reductions before placing a question on the ballot.

What the referendum would fund: Weiss said roughly $20,000,000 of the $23,000,000 question is intended to protect class sizes, restore and retain staff and maintain programs through the referendum’s term. He also said the district included an additional $3,000,000 per year in the plan to upgrade security; much of that money, he said, would be used to install controlled entrances at seven schools that do not currently have them. The district provided a tax-impact estimator on its website for homeowners to calculate individual effects.

Federal relief and the fiscal cliff: District leaders summarized how roughly $72,000,000 in federal COVID-era ESSER grants were used across several categories and said those grants were time-limited. The district reported about $22,600,000 spent on behavioral, social-emotional and staffing supports (including building-assigned substitutes), roughly $11,000,000 on noncapital technology items (Chromebooks, hotspots, classroom boards) and about $4,700,000 classified as indirect costs. Weiss and another district official compared using ESSER money to using one-time insurance proceeds for recurring costs: permitted for a limited period, but unsustainable once the grants expired.

Enrollment, utilizations and local context: Weiss described a long-term enrollment decline the district connects primarily to falling birth rates and said student enrollment has dropped roughly 11.5% over the measured period. He presented utilization figures the district used in its rightsizing plan: pre-rightsizing elementary utilization averaged about 66% and rose to roughly 85% at the start of the school year; middle schools moved from about 62% to 82%; high schools were about 78% pre-rightsizing and about 76% at the 2024 start. Weiss cited local taxable value figures and levy mechanics to explain how tax levies are allocated across municipalities in the district (City of Kenosha, Village of Pleasant Prairie and Town of Somers).

Closed buildings and property disposition: The district said the school board recently approved an agreement with the City of Kenosha under which the city will manage rezoning, demolition and remediation work needed to make former school sites marketable. The district said the city will pay the upfront costs and, after the city recoups those costs, proceeds would be split 50–50. Officials said demolition and remediation (asbestos, lead paint, other hazards) can be costly and that most sites are unlikely to generate large profits, though the district identified at least one site it expects to be more marketable.

Other items discussed: Officials replied to questions about pension, audits and campaign materials. The district said annual external financial audits are publicly available and that campaign mailers supporting the referendum came from a separate 501(c)(3) organization not affiliated with the district. On vouchers, Weiss said private-school vouchers are set at the state level and last year the district’s tax levy passed roughly $6,700,000 to voucher-related payments that the district collects and forwards to the state.

Implementation and next steps: If the referendum passes, Weiss said the district would use the authorized revenue to protect staffing and programs, implement planned safety projects and move some costs back into the operational budget that had been temporarily covered by ESSER. If it fails, he said the district will need to make further cuts that could include larger class sizes, reduced programs and postponed maintenance.

Questions remain about some figures discussed at the meeting where presenters used internal projections (for example, several different numbers were discussed for annual security allocations and for how ESSER-era expenditures will be transitioned into the operating budget). The district said it will post answers to submitted questions and the town-hall presentation materials on its website.