The arrogance of the Madison school board is just epic. They’re asking taxpayers to approve the largest referendums — and highest tax increases — in Madison history this November. Yet, they won’t lift a finger to tighten their belts or even provide detail on how some of the money will be spent.
In a second series of questions and answers about the $507 million capital spending referendum and the $100 million operating question in the Wisconsin State Journal this Sunday the MMSD basically told taxpayers to shut up and vote.
Here are some examples.
“Village Builders”
When readers asked what cuts the board had made before asking for all that money, the district’s finance director, Bob Soldner, said they hadn’t even tried. “In the board’s case, they said we want to continue our investments in 4K, we want to continue our investments in early literacy, we believe community schools and village builders … are making an impact in communities within Madison,” he said. “That all requires investment, and the board has made those in 2024-25 and is asking the voters in November to realize the value of that investment and that commitment to excellence.”
The value of that investment? A commitment to excellence? I don’t see much value or any commitment to excellence in this district. This is a district where test scores rank as some of the lowest in the state, where chronic absenteeism remains high, where the racial achievement gap hasn’t closed at all and where in 2022 – 2023 there were 800 police calls to Madison schools.
And “village builders?” I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t think it’s the job of Madison schools to build villages. It’s their job to teach kids to read, write, do math and treat their schoolmates and teachers with respect.
No Cuts, No Way
What’s going to happen should the operating referendum go down? The board will take all the money it needs out of its reserves. In other words, even if the voters say ‘no’ they’re going to spend the money anyway. The message is that they simply won’t make a hard choice, there’s nothing they’re willing to go without. Of course, that’s not sustainable, since eventually reserves run out. The irresponsibility of this is just hard to get your head around.
Just Go Ahead and Spend
The district used temporary COVID relief funds to pay for 110 permanent positions that they knew they couldn’t afford once the federal money went away. Now, they’re asking voters to pick up the tab. And if they don’t, will they cut the positions? No, they’ll pay for them out of reserves (see above). Also, the district has more positions than it had a decade ago while enrollment has declined by 7%. Along these lines the district gave teachers an 8% pay increase in 2023 while they were still awash in all that federal money — and again they knew full well that they couldn’t afford it.
We’ll Figure Out How to Spend Your Money Later
According to the district’s website, some of the operating money would be used for 4K programming, to bolster multilingual education and enrich career exploration opportunities in middle schools. But the district has not provided information about the cost of each of these items, or exactly what kind of programs would be expanded or added. Just trust them. This attitude is consistent with what the board president said when confronted with a deficit in the food service program. Rather than lamenting the bad management or feeling for the taxpayers, she only regretted that the lost money was something the board couldn’t “dream with.” I don’t know. I guess they wanted to dream of village builders.
This is the same district that would use referendum money to replace schools that are at 50% of capacity with new, bigger buildings. A district that won’t even consider consolidation of facilities. And it’s a district that plans to fix a relatively small $3 million deficit in its school lunch program…. but take a decade to do it.
There’s certainly some incompetence at work here, but most of all there’s arrogance.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
Well said and thank you for summarizing.
2/3rds of a billion dollars, and if they don’t get it they’re going to go into the reserves? With their record of non-achievement? This isn’t arrogance, it’s hubris.
I can only pray that a majority of voters sees through this gross level of incompetence and defeats the referendum.
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In all honesty Dave, this is exactly what Madison voters get when they constantly vote in extreme progressives that share the political ideology of totalitarian socialists, communists, and Marxists and vote down moderate liberals, social conservatives, and Republicans. There’s no political balance in Madison anymore, it’s very heavily weighted towards the extreme left.
In my opinion, the City of Madison and Dane County are heading straight down the same irrational paths as the Madison school board and if you disagree with them then you’re tarred the extremist, it’s pure psychological projection and Madison voters are politically trapped in a world of their own making. That ideological bubble surrounded by reality seems to be very accurate for this area.
If you vote for an extreme (D) that’s exactly what you’re going to get and when you fill the Madison School Board, Madison City Council, and the Dane County Board with a majority of extreme progressives then you’re going to get extreme thinking and policies. Some of the surrounding cities, towns, and villages in Dane County have the same problem. People move out of Madison because they don’t like what’s happening but then they bring their voting bigotries with them and they turn the surrounding areas into the same extreme political environment that they left. It’s a viral political pandemic in much of Dane County.
When are Madison voters going to see the light and fully understand that just because there’s a (D) following the name on the ballot and the political left (in general) harbors an unreasonable bigoted hate towards anyone with an (R) behind their name, doesn’t mean that (D) candidate is going to govern in any kind of balanced moderate manner?
If we all had the strength of character to completely ignore party affiliations maybe we could actually moderate the Dane County area, but hate runs deep in the 21st century.
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Well, yes, but it is democracy. In the last school board election nobody even showed up to challenge the two incumbents. That says to me that this is the direction Madison voters want to take, no matter how much I disagree with it. Moreover, it’s a reflection not just of Madison but of where the left has gone in the last decade or two — which is to say way left. I think of myself as a moderate these days even though my views haven’t changed much since I used to call myself a liberal. It’s just that liberals have moved off the scale.
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or, could it be that instead of agreeing with the current Board, nobody is willing to do the hard work of running and being on the Board. First of all, how much can two people do if they are outnumbered? And, school Boards have taken an awful lot of heat and abuse, especially since COVID. I think that the way Board members are treated and what they have to put up with discourages people from running. I agree with everything you say here and I’m worried about these referendums passing, especially since I see that they are putting a lot of effort into making them pass with a very active campaign to do so. The signs are popping up everywhere. If you vote no, you don’t care about Madison schools or our kids. I sure do hope people are looking carefully. I will absolutely vote no and am sick about this. The outcome either way is awful.
Debbie Zeegers
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All good points. And for as much as I strongly disagree with this board I do give them credit for simply stepping up and doing the work that few others seem to want to do.
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Thanks for the conversation.
Dave Cieslewicz wrote, “That says to me that this is the direction Madison voters want to take”
I’m not sure that that’s completely accurate but I’m certain it is for some. When push comes to shove, when Madison Democrats head to the voting booth they “vote for Democrats”, the extremists know that, they bank on it, and it’s been shown to be fact. Until Madison voters change their voting patterns, that in my opinion are nothing short of bigoted, nothing will change and it will likely get much worse.
Maybe what the lack of candidates is showing us is that no reasonably minded moderate thinking activist wants to intentionally subject themself to the absurd false propaganda attacks that extreme progressives in this area launch against those that are not like them. Remember the recent Blaska’s run for the school board, they actually tarred him as a racist because he wanted to keep Cops in Schools and maintain discipline in the classrooms, I think I heard someone say something to the effect of “discipline is racism” and the Democrats voted for the (D). It’s as if the extremists are telling us that it’s a “woke or broke” campaign, i.e. either you vote for the woke extremist candidates or the evil non woke extremist candidates will break everything, but when the extremists get voted into office what we get is “Woke & Broke”.
What’s really clear to me is that until the moderate left and the moderate right join together to figuratively shove the extremes into obscurity where they belong nothing is going to change the current inverted bell curve. The extremes have inverted the bell curve and now have the loudest voices in the 21st Century “Age of Rage“, as Jonathan Turley puts it.
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I totally agree.
It would be nice/helpful if someone could make „NO“ yard signs available for the three referendums. Maybe a different color for each.
Ken Streit
Get Outlook for iOShttps://aka.ms/o0ukef
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The reason that nobody challenged the incumbents in the last election is that being an MMSD school board member would really suck, and everybody knows it. The worst thing that could happen if you ran would be that you won a three year sentence on Ali Muldrow’s board. Who would want to campaign for a low-paying job that requires dozens of daily emails, lots of long, boring meetings and constant pressure from special interest groups that might, maybe, benefit our district’s educational mission?
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Dave Cieslewicz for school board.
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If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve. If impeached I’ll plead no contest.
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Village builder is a job title at MMSD. Before you mock it further: at the local elementary school I am familiar with, the position is held by a woman of color who lives in the neighborhood catchment area. She builds relationships- successfully- with parents who are lagging in things like getting their kids to school in time, etc. It is direct contact work with kids and families, focused on the very people you’ve shamed here and previously. From what I hear from my spouse, who is a teacher, she is very effective.
I invite you to take a look at what the Wisconsin Association of School Board professionals put out in 2024 on funding. https://wasbo.com/images/wasbo/documents/6/handouts/2024/AC2024_StateOfSchoolFinance.pdf
There’s a graph that starts in 1985, the year I graduated West High School. Then, school property tax levy as % of personal income was 2.49% Now it is 1.51%
Now we have: The Internet, requiring computers for teachers and students. Lockdown drills due to school shooters, requiring cameras, door locks, software. And we have seriously aging schools. My middle school was Cherokee. It’s on the list for this referendum. It’s 40 years older than when I went there. Can’t we imagine these schools might need refurbishment or replacement at some point? Sherman is 100 years old! Climate change: the schools are very hot at the start of the school year and even as recently as two weeks ago. And in May now! Do you try to work at your computer daily in 85 to 90° heat? No you don’t. You sit in air-conditioning. And an oft proposed solution to reading lags is summer school- but in Wisconsin you must have SOME schools with AC to do this!
My parents spent more on my public school education than we are doing right now for our kids. I can’t even believe how quickly people have forgotten how our state elected officials destroyed public Ed funding with Act 10. Please look at the images linked.
BTW: our only kid just graduated from EAST, and we don’t have a single school in our neighborhood on this list. I’m still hugely PRO referendum because it’s about all of us and our shared future.
If you don’t think schools make Madison, you are wrong. Take a drive to Verona and Sun Prairie and Cottage Grove. We ‘compete’ for people’s commitment and property tax dollars. Their physical plant re schools is NEW NEW NEW. Their teachers are paid same or better than Madison now. We need to get caught up!
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Thanks for the information and feedback. I don’t disagree that schools need physical improvement. I disagree with building bigger new schools to replace some at 50% capacity.
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